


Rewrite The Stars

by MGNemesi



Series: I hear that we're married, sweetheart [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Relationships, Dorks in Love, Epic Love, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together through the help of media, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Not Iron Man 1-3 Compliant, Science Bros, Slow Build, Slow Burn, They are the cutest of cute, not Avengers compliant, temporary/past/physical only Howard Stark/James "Bucky" Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-03-29 13:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 57,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MGNemesi/pseuds/MGNemesi
Summary: They met when Captain America infiltrated the Hydra factory in Kreischberg, and found Sergeant Barnes strapped to that accursed medical table. It's... *something* at first sight. Something unnameable.Fate lead them to each other. And Fate pushed them apart. It takes pining, loss, anger, the serum that Erskine invented and Zola stole, not to mention Steve’s Big Mouth (™) but they make it there, in the end. In the Future.





	1. Chapter 1 - The One I Was Meant to Find

**Author's Note:**

> I have SO MUCH to say about this work... so MUCH that I find myself not knowing exactly what, especially since I don't want to spoil anything. Even just now, I kept writing and erasing stuff from these notes. So just... expect the unexpected, maybe?  
> Hope you'll like this new journey! :D

  
  


**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:**[Shirokou](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokou/profile) read over my first draft. Any surviving errors is due to my Editing Queen tendencies. *flips hair* *hair hits her own face*

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 1730.

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with temporary/past/physical only Howard/Bucky.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Summary:** Fate keeps pushing them apart; it takes pining, loss, anger, the serum that Erskine invented and Zola stole, not to mention Steve’s Big Mouth (™) but they make it there, in the end. In the _Future._

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

 **A** fterwards, there were a lot of rumours circulating about them knowing each other since before the conflict; tales about them being a pair of childhood friends that Destiny had trust into the horrors of war without managing to separate.

The truth is that they met for the first time in 1943, when Steve infiltrated the Hydra factory in Kreischberg, and found Sergeant Barnes strapped to that accursed medical table, delirious with pain, soaked in sweat and with deep bruises under his eyes.

The lab, when Steve stepped into it, was as dark and cold as a catacomb, and also terribly rank. There were cages in a corner, too big to be a dog’s, and shelves lined with jars that had Steve reeling back in revulsion. There were notes scattered on the ground, and a scalpel sat in a puddle of dark ichor, along with several, sticky syringes.

Throat tight, Steve rushed to the only surviving person remaining in the horror room: a fellow American soldier that was muttering his name and rank feverishly: Sergeant Barnes, 325725. Sergeant Barnes, 325725. Sergeant Barnes, 3257…

As soon as Steve touched him, Barnes’s eyes snapped to his own, ignited with such a flame within, his stare so much like a wounded beast of prey’s, that Steve felt entirely pinned, and could do nothing but stare, breathless and transfixed, for long seconds.

But the building was going up in flames around them. Not quite the best scenario to get tongue-tied or to introduce themselves. They dragged each other out of there with barely a word exchanged between them (apart from a few barked orders, “Go!” “No! Not without you!”, and witty one-liners). The rest of the freed soldiers had gathered in the woods outside. They all turned as one towards the burning factory when a final blast sent a wave of hot air towards them. Then, in silence, they turned back around and began trudging as far away from that hell as their weary bodies would allow.

During the long march back to base, Steve stepped up as the moral leader, while Sergeant Barnes sort-of fell into the backdrops, constantly moving around and making sure that everything at the fringes of their long column was going well.

Which means that, once more, they didn’t get a chance to sit back and have a proper talk, busy as they were. But Steve couldn’t say he wasn't impressed by the other man. Barnes was practical and resourceful, competent and hard-edged, like a finely honed blade. And yet he was quick to smile, and so very kind to his fellow soldiers, in a time and place where kindness was a rare currency.

(more privately, deep in the core of him that was more artist than soldier, Steve was also helplessly smitten with Barnes’s crooked smile, and the way the grey-blue in his eyes lit up sometimes with unexpected mirth. He found himself studying the little dimple in Barnes’s chin, the vivid pink of his lips; the way his wet curls, heavy with sweat, tickled the rosy shell of his ears. Truth be told, Steve ached for pencil and paper for the whole march).

Once they were back to base camp, they were immediately separated. Steve, proud of what he’d achieved but still painfully aware that his whole mission had been unsanctioned, went and surrendered himself to Phillips for disciplinary action. However the Colonel, surprising possibly no other SSR agent but poor Steve, took a look at Barnes, froze, swore colourfully and basically frog-marched him by the ear to the med tent, unamused by the litany of “ouch-ouch-ouch”ies streaming from Barnes’s smirking mouth.

The medics at the base had barely the time to check him over, and then the Sergeant was wrangled into a non-standard black uniform, festooned with rifle and knives, and sent out in the cold to do… something hush-hush.

And dirty.

And immensely important.

Well, at least apparently.

It’s not like Steve had the clearance to even _breathe_ about it; let alone _ask for details_.

Even Peggy was mostly in the dark about that one, and Howard’s only reaction to Barnes’s name was to tilt his head, wiggle his eyebrows, and make a comment on the man’s impressive _ass_ ets.

Steve’s brain got stuck trying to decide which one of Barnes's best features Howard was referring to: surely his eyes? Or his smile. His long fingers, their skill in handling any kind of tool. His humour. His stubborn, indomitable spirit. His… it was a long moment before Steve registered the lewd edge of Howard's words and caught his meaning. Steve didn't fail to reproach him in a low hiss, cheeks gone a little pink, but truth be told... it wasn't an observation _entirely without merit_. Ripe peaches and bouncing nickels and all that.

The thing about Barnes is that he was the enfant terriblé of the SSR division. Not that he was any younger than Steve or most of the other agents. That wasn’t it. He was a free spirit, wild and untamed, who accompanied bursts of ferocious joie-de-vivre to the laser-focus that made him an irreplaceable asset to the army.

He was as much of an object of gossip as Steve himself was, and was ostensibly his polar opposite: always slouching lax and cat-like during meetings, whereas Steve stood at attention, his dress uniform starched so perfectly it would have probably remained standing even without him inside it. Singing and making merry around their camps at night, swinging a companionable arm around the nearest shoulder and giving attention to everybody, while Steve sat alone on his cot, writing reports or planning the next mission to the detail. Standing as still as death in his sniper’s nest, a veritable statue of ice, the only thing alive in him the flame in his eyes; whereas Steve was all about the theatrics, spun and ran and made noise and dressed colourfully, drawing all attention and firepower to himself, so that others might not get hurt.

At their core though, theywere the same: young men who wanted to do the right thing, fierce and true and stubborn like only children or fools have any right to be.

Steve was intrigued by the charming enigma that was Barnes, but it seemed like everything conspired to keep them separated: for the better part of three months, Captain America and Sergeant Barnes kept brushing against each other like ships in the night - the Howling Commandos were being shuttled to and fro across the war theatre, while Barnes kept disappearing and then popping up unexpectedly all over the place, involved in super-secret missions.

Those rare times the two of them were at the SSR Headquarters in London at the same time, or stationed temporarily at the same camp, they never had a chance to talk. The most they could hope for was catching each other’s eye long enough for a nod, a commiserating look, or one of Barnes’s crooked smiles (which Steve shouldn’t have found so endearing, but he did anyway).

The how and why of it remains a mystery, but even if they hardly ever spoke, they got in the habit of making funny faces at each other from over Colonel Phillips’s shoulder whenever they could. Somehow, Steve was _always_ the one who got caught with his tongue out, a finger mustache, crossing his eyes, or - on one memorable occasion in Germany that was made to disappear from the records - with all three of the above, plus a finger twisting in his belly button.

Caught like that, Steve blushed so violently his face could’ve exploded. He felt entirely vindicated when Barnes burst out laughing at Steve’s misfortune, loud and brash enough to earn himself a week of kitchen duty, too. They scurried off as soon as they were dismissed, going separate ways as per usual. Barnes had been wearing black warpaint around his eyes for one of his covert missions, and the tears of laughters had it melting down his cheeks in streaks that looked like lightning bolts. Unsurprisingly, Steve found himself itching to draw them. Itching to trace his eyes for hours on end up and down the lines of Barnes’s face, his lips, his body, slowly and carefully reproducing them on paper and turning his likeness into the sort of art that lasts eternal.

Three months they spent this way, until the fateful day that Phillips took them, Agent Carter and Howard Stark aside and ordered the Howlies to follow Barnes on a mission.

“ _Follow_ Sergeant Barnes, sir?” Steve had asked, a little dubiously. “Don’t you mean that the Sergeant will be assigned to my unit for our next mission?”

It was a completely justifiable question, seeing that Steve outranked Barnes.

But, “ _Not all soldiers earn their ranks dancing around a stage, Rogers,”_ a visiting brass had snapped. “ _You_ will support _him_. And follow his lead when necessary.”

Peggy had bristed visibly at the slight, but it was Barnes who’d looked up from sharpening his knife, eyes like molten liquid in the low light, and answered: “No, some people earn their rank saving 400 men whom the army had abandoned to their death.”

Then, he’d turned the whole force of those eyes on Steve, knocking the breath out of him for the length of several, loud beats of his heart.

“I was ordered to infiltrate the castle of a certain Baron Strucker in Cherbeaux, destroy his lab and steal his research,” he revealed, ignoring the brass’s scandalized spluttering. “You and the Howlies are just the kind of distraction I need to make it out of there alive with all his prisoners.” He paused. The smile he gave Steve then was small but true, and oh-so sweet. “But make no mistake: _I_ will follow _you_ , Captain. To the end of the line.”

Steve swallowed fire. He looked at those burning eyes, those roguish lips, that golden skin, and wondered, for a moment, if he might---if maybe--- if _they’d--_ -

But no.

_No._

It was _Howard_ who took Barnes home that night, delivering him back to Steve in the morning bushy-tailed and glowing and pleasantly _sore_. Steve felt something loosely related to jealousy gnaw a hole in his guts and burrow in the damp to grind its dripping teeth, but he reminded himself: Barnes’s escapades were _none of his business._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**


	2. Chapter 2 - They know I want you (It's not a secret I try to hide)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky keeps going on missions with the Howlies, and showers His Captain with delightful little trinkets he collects while he's away.  
> Steve is totally smitten and everybody knows.  
> But there's Howard.....................

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** [Shirokou](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokou/profile)

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 1833

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Summary:**

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 **D** uring 1944, Sergeant Barnes was sent on sensitive missions with the Howlies as his official distraction no less than two dozen times.

He wasn’t part of the team, _not quite_. But he was well accepted by them all. Even, grudgingly, by Peggy, who fussed over him and was completely exasperated by him in equal parts.

After their first mission together, Barnes was whiskered away in all haste, and he left with a long glance back at Steve and a cheeky salute. When he rendevouz-ed with the Howlies at the HQ for their second joint venture, he had a duffel slung across his shoulder, brimming with souvenirs he’d collected on his solo missions. The same thing happened the third and fourth time, and then it was simply tradition.

Peggy got heaps of classified folders, a couple of very powerful, very small pistols with their sensible holders, a tube of creamy, scarlet lipstick, slim but strong herbal cigarettes, and even a pair of silk stockings, once. Dum Dum usually got alcohol. French wine at first, which he grumbled about, and the occasional bottle of Grappa which... he grumbled about a lot, _lot_ less. He always knocked everything back with a hearty laugh though, regardless of taste. He did it for the warmth, he said. His bones sometimes felt as cold as ice, out there in the field.

Falsworth got a lot of tea, and tea, and some more _tea_ , besides. Which had started as a gag, but Monty ended up appreciating _tremendously_ the strange mountain herbs blends that Barnes picked up all across the Alps, so they never swapped to a different gift. Gabe got cigarettes sometimes, and ornate letter paper to write to his mom and sisters back home; but mostly he received books, especially on poetry.

Morita got a toolbox straight from an Hydra factory, a few packets of sulfa drugs for his medical kit, a smelly ointment that did _wonders_ against bug bites, and also a few ampoules of penicillin that he hoarded jealousy. Dernier was the recipient of a nice wool beret, a vest with so many pockets it was hard to count (but each found a use), and a silver lighter with the engraving of a fox. Barnes _tried_ to smuggle him some experimental explosive too, but Steve put his foot down on that. Most of that stuff was destined to Stark and his research department, so it eventually always made its way back to Jacques, anyway.

As for Steve…

...he was pulled a bit aside while his men were distracted ransacking the duffel’s treasures, and he was handed the strangest things from right inside Barnes’s coat.

Once it was a pretty shell with a pearlescent formation inside that looked like a melting snowball. Another time he got a dried-up leaf that had been coated in a fine layer of metal. A refractive stone with a shape almost like a teardrop; the inner, delicate mechanism of a clock, still ticking on even without its case; the most minuscule glass figurine Steve had ever seen; a star-shaped pin as red as a cherry. All strange and beautiful things, delicate, ephemeral and useless, but all of them precious in their own way.

Amongst those gifts, the most precious was possibly the smallest of all, something Steve could not hold in his pocket for safekeeping like he did with the other trinkets.

“Call me Bucky,” Barnes had said one night near the end of it all, firelight licking at his sharp cheekbones, snow bejewelling in his hair, and the endless canopy of the starry sky reflected in his eyes. “‘Swhat my family calls me back in Brooklyn, anyway.”

“ _Brooklyn?_ ” Steve had asked, breathless with the sharp reminder of home.

“ _Born and bred_ ,” Barnes - no, _Bucky_ had answered, his grin swift and proud.

It was a suspended moment - heavy, peaceful, almost magical - or at least it was until Bucky used Steve’s distraction to pour snow in the back of his collar, holding a stitch in his side at Steve’s resulting Dance of The Icy Coldness.

And then there was Stark, who wasn’t officially one of the Howlies and yet could be _nothing but_ , since he didn’t spend time with any other unit but theirs, wasn’t _invested_ in any other unit but theirs, wasn’t close _friends_ with them.

And Stark got the most precious gift of all, each and every single time.

He got _Barnes himself_.

Truth be told, Bucky brought back souvenirs for him, too: Hydra weaponry, intricate blueprints, glowy contraptions as strange-looking as they were deadly, and the likes. But it was all part of his mission, and Howard was never much impressed by his findings anyway. He tossed whatever it was aside, sparing it barely a glance; banded his fingers like a manacle around Barnes’s wrist and dragged him away from them all, tugging like a brat, talking and gesticulating a mile a minute about mission reports and math functions and coordinates in order to divert attention from the possessive hold he had on the other man.

As Steve understood it, they weren’t--

They weren’t _sweethearts._

They were friendly, that was undeniable. But their relationship was purely physical. There was no love between them, not like it was budding between Private Lorraine and that cat Hodge from Camp Lehigh.

They just.

They shared their bodies under the cover of the night, and mostly ignored one another in daylight, for the sake of appearance.

And Steve _got it_ , he really did.

It was common practice to seek comfort in the harsh reality of war. It was common practice too, to hide the source of this comfort if it happened to belong to your own gender.

He just… he _hated_ it.

Hated that two men couldn’t walk hand in hand like Hodge and Lorraine allowed themselves to, sometimes. Hated the threat of discharge that hung over such couples. Hated the derision. The judgment. The cruel barbs. Hated the way that Bucky looked helpless and stung, sometimes, when Stark shunned him with so much force it seemed like they weren’t even friends to start with. He hated the injustice of it all. The sadness. The hypocrisy. The violence. The--

Steve stopped where he was, halfway down the stairs that led to Howard’s underground labs. So early in the morning, the SSR Headquarters was somnolent and empty, the air still and full of echoes. Eyes closed, Steve took a moment to breath in and out, trying to keep his temper in check. “My brave little fool” Sarah would’ve called him, smiling ruefully at this desire he had; this burning, visceral need to right all the wrongs in the world. Peggy would offer a more pragmatic but just as fond “bloody idiot”, he was sure.

...then again, Peggy had been calling him that ever since Barnes had started giving him the trinkets, and she always egged Dum Dum on when he started making kissy faces at the two of them, so.

But perhaps they were right.

Perhaps he _was_ a bloody idiot.

Because the thing he hated the most was that--

\---that---

\---that _he_ wasn’t---

\---wasn’t _the one to_ \---

_\---that Bucky didn’t---_

A laugh echoed up from downstairs, a laugh that Steve could feel down in the marrow of his bones, sliding through him like an hot blade, like fine liquor, like honey and like fire.

Peering over the bannister, Steve caught a glimpse of Stark, walking backwards and gesticulating grandiosely as he went. A few steps behind him there was Bucky, head thrown back in laughter. Steve found himself smiling along, but then Stark stopped in his tracks and said something brisk, face stern and serious, that cut the darling laughter off. Abruptly he swerved, sprinted away to hook both elbows with two female agents who were passing nearby, and whisked them both away.

Bucky’s face tightened briefly with real frustration, perhaps hurt, lips pursed in a line and head hung low. His hand tightened around something in his pocket, and then let go.

Steve’s heart panged, and he clenched the teardrop stone Bucky had given him so stiffly, that it almost shattered in his fist. He relaxed his hand quickly, and pressed the stone heavily into his chest, as if asking its forgiveness for the rough treatment.

He swallowed it all down, down, down. A bitter pill. He felt something cold spread like tentacle from his chest outwards, and then--

\--then Bucky glanced up, finding him unerringly, as if his gaze were magnetized to Steve. Immediately, his face lit up like the sun. He rushed over with a happy: “My Captain!” on his lips that had Steve tingling all over with a gentle warmth. “Just the person I wanted to meet,” Bucky added once he’d caught up.

“If this is about going out for drinks tonight with you and the Howlies…” Steve began apologetically.

“Oh, you’re coming,” Bucky interrupted, slashing a hand through the air. “I don’t care if I have to tie you up and bride-carry you--” Steve steadfastly refused to blush at that image “--the army can’t have you, you’re mine for tonight, no excuses.” Aaaaaaaaaand here came the blush. Right. “No, I wanted to ask if you heard anything about our next mission?”

Steve made a thoughtful hum, following after Bucky as he lead the way back upstairs.

“Not anything specific. It’s got something to do with a modified freight train, I think?”

“Well, _I_ know nothing about trains, but our next target?” Bucky said, with a tight edge in his voice that Steve didn’t entirely understand until he added: “It’s _Zola._ ”

Steve’s steps faltered for a moment, his mind flashing back to carefully lined jars and flaking blood and the stench of fear.

“Schmidt’s pet scientist?”

“One and the same.”

They stopped where they were, between a step and the next, halfway between the basement and the ground floor, bodies half immersed in the shade, half warmed by sunlight.

“Buck…”

“I know what you’re about to say.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re going to tell me to sit this one out.”

Steve hesitated a moment, watching as Bucky’s eyebrow arched up and up in an unimpressed look. It took a minute of fidgeting, eyes locked. But then Steve shrugged, conceding defeat.

“There’d be nothing wrong with staying behind, for once,” he muttered.

“Would you? Sit this one out, if you were me?” Steve licked his lips, glanced away and then back up. His silence was admission enough. “Steve,” Bucky said, and his voice was warm. Warmer still was his hand, when he put it on Steve’s chest. “I appreciate the concern, I really do. But I can come along. If anything, I _need_ to.”

“I’m not sure…”

“Oh, come on, Steve,” Bucky cajoled. “I promise you. I’ll be careful and all. The sucker got me once, yeah; but even if I freeze or worse still snap and go for his throat, I know that you’ll be there for me. I’m gonna be just fine.”

Steve felt a chill run down his spine, but disregarded it.

 

He would always regret it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**~TBC**


	3. Chapter 3 - Fate is pulling you miles away (and out of reach from me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky slipped through his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During WW2, a soldier getting a "blue ticket" was getting discharged only because he was homosexual, and his commanders didn't approve of his sexual preferences. ;-;

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** [Shirokou](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokou/profile)

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

**Chapter Word Count:**

**Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warnings:** The mission on the train happens here. You know what it means.

 **Summary:** B **ucky slipped through his fingers.**

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **C** aptain America and his Howling Commandos left the SSR Headquarters in all secrecy, stealing away in the middle of a clear, chilly night like a band of thieves. They shouldered their packs and walked through the bombed ruins and a few miles out into the fields, heading northwest from London until they found their transport.

They grumbled and cursed as they climbed in the truck, clumsy in the dark despite the moonlight spilling down from the heavens like milk. They were driven to a nearby aerial base, and the Howlies rolled off the truck all sleepy and slow, indolent like old cats. It was still dark out, so getting on the plane elicited another round of cursing and stumbling, but once inside they settled in relatively easily.

Steve sat a little apart from the rest, grabbed his backpack and picked up a folder. Bucky wriggled his nose, but as the appointed second in command, he dropped next to Steve, throwing one ankle across Steve’s own and tangling their legs. They spent the whole trip huddled close, whispering in the dark, Bucky’s head drooping lower and lower until it settled on the crook of Steve’s neck like it belonged there. His voice turned drowsy and dreamy for a minute or two, warm like melted caramel, and then he napped for the rest of the trip, breathing gently against the side of Steve’s neck. Steve laid his cheek on top of Bucky’s head and felt his heart thrill happily.

By the time they were dropped at the foot of the mountains, Steve’s galloping heart was ready to burst. Or melt, rather; brimming as it was with a tender, fluttery feeling he was afraid to name.

Hiking up to the spot where they’d planned to set up camp took away the rest of the day. Walking is a strange experience when your feet sink down to the calves and your breath draws ghost in front of your eyes. The Howlies had all sort of accidents. Dum Dum for example, fell flat on his face not once, not twice, but five times, leaving funny imprints in the snow as deep as his own forearms.

Only once it was Bucky’s fault. One other time it was Dernier who tripped Dum Dum, only just to settle a bet. Dum Dum made sure to chase him around and through a copse of trees, yelling the most colourful death threats imaginable. They nearly brained themselves when they slipped on a patch of ice, and hunched their shoulders in like chastised children when Bucky and Steve reprimanded them for their foolishness. At the end of the tirade, they made the mistake of telling Steve and Bucky: “Yes, Mom!” and “Oui, Papa!”, and nearly brained themselves a second time around when they scampered away from their gaping leaders.

Monty was the most composed of the lot. Even if there was a wide wet patch on his ass from where he’d landed on fresh snow, he marched on with his chin held high, as befitting of a Lord. Morita grumbled the whole time about having to carry the radio up the steeply slopes, and he kept doing so even when Gabe graciously took the equipment from him.

They reached their destination with just enough daylight left to set up the tents and gobble down some spam for dinner. It was cold up there, and their Captain was a walking stove on his best days. So by tacit assent they all settled for the night curled around him like a litter of puppies. They accidentally on purpose pushed Barnes in the middle of the pile, until he was forced to either lay like a blanket all over Steve or be maimed by a flailing elbow.

It was a strange arrangement, but nobody complained. And when in the morning Steve woke alone with Bucky curled on his chest, their arms and legs wound so tightly together you couldn’t tell when one ended and the other began, nobody commented either.

The new day dawned chilly, with just a little sun peeking from behind the mountain peaks. Ice winked from the shadowy patches under the trees, a dangerous and pretty trap. Snow twirled down like a sprinkling of flour, and it kept snowing as they packed some essential and climbed up the rocky outcrop from which - you’ll never _believe_ this - they were going to zipline across a deep gorge and onto a speeding train.

They settled down to wait, Steve’s side pressed to Bucky’s side, the Howlies sitting in a tight ring around them, chit-chatting about the silliest things, the normal things, those things they missed the most from back home: the simple taste of butter and jam spread on bread, or the hot smokey burn of whiskey; the homely smell of a pot left to simmer for hours, the way the aroma filled your stomach through your nostrils; the feeling of clean blankets, hot from the sun; of green grass tickling your fingertips.

The rest of their morning was all laughter and teasing and a spattering of nerves.

And then the train came.

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **T** he mission on the train went like this.

Excitement.

Adrenaline.

Exhilaration.

  Fear.

        Pain.

               Fear.

                      Pain.

                                                Fear.

                              Pain.

                           Fear.

                                                        Pain.

                                                    Fear.

                                        Pain.

                     Fear.

                                                           Pain.

                                           Fear.

                                                         Pain.

                                                                               Fear.

                 Pain.

                                                              Fear.

                                Pain.

                                                   Fear.

                                                                        Pain.

                                 Fear.

          Pain.

                                                                                          Fear.

                                                               Pain.

                                   Fear.

                                                       Pain.

                                     Fear.

                            Pain.

                                        Fear.

 

Pain.

Pain.

 

Pain.

 

                Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. PAIN.

 

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **B** ucky had slipped through his fingers.

He was---

He was _gone_.

His-

His infectious laugh, his piercing eyes, his bitten lips, so plush and pink; the windblown hair, the skilled fingers; that habit he had, so endearing, to wriggle his nose when he was teasing you; the way he would tilt his head and peer through his lashes when he was giving you his full attention, all but cutting off your breath with those jewel eyes; the way he carefully held himself, how he hesitated just a moment (looking unbearably _shy_ , like a cat unsure of its welcome in the warm home beckoning from beyond the window), before handing Steve his latest trinket, his eyes so wide and clear and luminous, and deep like only the sky is deep.

All of that, all the precious parts of the beautiful puzzle that was Bucky, all of it was gone, it was nothing but a scattered memory now, because Bucky had been brave and selfless and loyal. Bucky had held up the shield when Steve had fallen, he’d used it to protect His Dear Captain. And then Steve, for all that he was Captain America, the Golden Boy, the Man with a Plan - Steve had _failed_ \- utterly and uglily - he’d failed when it mattered the most, and Bucky had been hit, had been hurt. Bucky had fallen, Bucky had clung, and when Steve had reached - not far enough, not strong enough, not fast enough, not enough, _never_ enough, useless Steve, who do you think you are? what worth are you even, if you can’t cling to the thing that matters the most to you? - Bucky _had_ tried. Brave, brave Bucky who’d reached back. Who’d had touched Steve’s fingertips with his own. But Steve. Steve hadn’t latched on. He’d let Bucky slip right through his fingers. The wind and the snow had wrenched him away, swallowed him like a beast would swallow prey, and he was gone now, gonegonegone in that howling whiteness that had erased him from the world but not from Steve's soul, he was gone forever, and ever, and ever, with no hope of ever coming back.

Right then, something set off inside Steve. It began ticking backwards, gearing him up to _explode_.

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **F** irst came the numbness.

Steve trudged inside the SSR Headquarters in a stupor, wild-eyed, unwashed, unshaven, only barely aware of the prisoner he had been tugging along, clutched by the arm like a child would clutch a toy. He’d been moving in a daze, following the familiar line of Gabe’s back step by step, unaware of his surroundings, moving like a dead body reanimated, straining forth with no thought of its own.

He roused, just enough to raise his head, when one of the Howlies pushed their shoulders together, unbearably gently. Looking up, Steve saw cool marble and echoing halls and an imposing metal door. His friends were standing between him and a swarm of agents converging closer.

They were-- in London. It was. _London_ , wasn’t it?

The Headquarters.

It must’ve been--

Days.

It must’ve.

Since Bucky.

 _Since_.

He drew in a sharp, wet-sounding breath. Dum Dum made a low, soothing rumble deep in his chest like a big cat. Monty patted his back, while Jacques, Jim and Gabe closed ranks until their sides brushed Steve’s, all of them looking prickly and exhausted under the layers of dirt.

Bucky wasn’t the first man Steve had seen dying in the war. Far from it.

But he was the first of his own men to give his life in service of their country.

The first - and hopefully last - of his _friends_ to fall.

The first person Steve had pitifully, _actively_ let down since the serum.

His first.

Bucky was his _first_ \---

First lo---

\--- _lo_ \---

\---lo _v_ \---

And he’d never even _known_.

Steve had never told him, and now.

Now Bucky had slipped.

Right through Steve’s fingers.

He was gone.

And he’d never, ever _know_.

So lost he was in his own head, that Steve didn’t realise someone was standing before him until Dum Dum nudged him again, still with that painful carefulness one would reserve for fragile, cracked glass.

Steve blinked. And oh, the blurred shape in front of him was-- it was _Howard_. With Colonel Phillips next to him. Private Lorraine, too. A few other familiar faces. Mouths moving to issue garbled, confused sounds Steve couldn’t recognise as words. But--

Something about Howard tugged at him.

He had.

Steve had.

Something to tell him, didn’t he?

Swallowing down bile, Steve let go of their prisoner - Zola, the ratty man’s name was _Zola_ \- like he was suddenly disgusted, and shakily approached the engineer. Howard’s face went from jovial to puzzled before shifting all the way to a strange sort of tension, brows furrowed and eyes jumping between Steve’s own.

“Bucky’s gone,” Steve croaked, and it hurt like razors. He was swaying, trembling, so terribly exhausted with grief. He wondered if Howard would help Steve bear his weight, if he collapsed now. If they might help keep each other upright though the pain, or if there was no way, no way, to survive the wave.

The engineer moved back from him, disquieted. Smiled confusedly, like Steve puzzled him.

“Bucky…?” he asked.

Oh, and how it speared Steve to realise that _he didn't know_.

“Barnes,” he whispered, voice full of agony. “Sergeant Barnes. _He_ _is dead._ ”

Howard’s face shuttered so fast, it had Steve flinching back a step. Howard’s palm, when it closed around his bicep, burned like a brand.

“Well, Captain,” Howard said, “I’m sorry for this. Sergeant Barnes was an incredible man who will be sorely missed, but men die in war every single day. Your unit suffered a terrible loss, but we’ll find you a replacement sniper in no time, I’m sure.”

Steve recoiled, shrugging off the friendly hand like it disgusted him. There was something in Howard’s eyes - some sort of emotion, something he wasn’t allowing himself to show, but--

 _\--it wasn’t enough_.

Not for Steve, not for _Bucky_ , whatever still lingered of him in this world.

Blood rushed to Steve’s head and he swayed before he managed to centre himself, teeth bared and fists clenched and--

 _“That’s all you have to say?!”_ he shouted, loud enough to attract some gasps. Something flickered across Howard’s countenance. Something subtle and brief, but enough for Steve to know - no matter what it looked like, Howard _was_ grieving. But however deep that grief might run, however unfair it was to compare it to Steve’s own, Howard was unwilling to show it. But no. Not _unwilling_.

_Unallowed._

_Afraid._

Their very society forbid the kind of relationship he’d had with Bucky. The promise of unimaginable repercussion had made him loathe to show attachment to Bucky. And so Howard would rather sweep Bucky under a rug like old dirt, and then step on it on his way towards a new day.

Steve’s anger morphed, then. It burned inside him like a creature of fire and hunger, but it had been born of sadness - of bitter regret and choked-back tears. Its sharp talons and dripping jaws turned from Howard - Howard, who’d had Bucky’s body - who had tasted the warmth of his skin, and drunk of his kisses - but had never had any hold over that crooked smile, had never known the bliss of those starry skies, the snowy plains, the joyous laughter, the shy tilt of the head, the wonder of discovering together those little, precious trinkets. The beast of Steve’s anger moved from Howard and focused on the rest of the world, instead. Not just _Zola_ , not just Schmidt, not just Hydra, but whatever was wrong with society, that would not allow for love between two men, that would imprison and terrorise and torture the few brave ones that wouldn’t deny their right to love.

“ _That’s all you have to say?!_ ” Steve shouted again, turning to look at their audience. The Howlies rallied behind their Captain, chins held high, shoulders rolled in preparation of a fight.

“That’s enough, Captain,” Colonel Phillips said gravely, but Steve rounded on him like a rabid thing.

“No! No, it’s _not_ enough! It’ll _never_ be enough! Bucky’s _gone_ and nothing will get him back!”

“You are right,” Phillips murmured back, not without kindness, “ _nothing_ will get him back, Rogers. I understand how you might feel. Now, you need to calm down, allow yourself the time to grieve---”

Steve snorted, wet and loud.

“‘Allow myself the time to grieve?’ What, like you’ll grant me an emergency leave? A hardship discharge? Will you let me go dig through the snow until I find a body to weep over, and carry him back in my arms to bury? Will you let me paint my suit black for my loss? Will I get to swap my helmet for a mourning veil? Uh? _Uh?!_ ” he hammered forcefully, voice raising with every sentence, going from murmur to roar.

There were gasps all around. A ripple went through the assembled agents, and a wave formed as some bodily stepped back, horrified. Was the Captain _comparing_ \---? Was the Captain _suggesting_ …?!

Steve swivelled around, eyes as hard as flint sweeping across the gathered.

“No, I won’t be allowed to do that, _any_ of that. And you know what? I don’t _want_ to. I don’t want to wear my grief on my sleeve for _you_ to gossip about. _You._ Who all pawed at him, but never got to know him, never even had an inkling of the kind of man that he truly was. How loyal and sweet and dedicated and _wonderful_ \--” he yanked the chain from around his neck, the one where he kept his dog tags and showed the gem at them, the teardrop stone Bucky had liberated from a river, causing another ripple and several gasps in the crowd “-- the man who gave this to me was! You lost your chance, because he’s gone! He’s _GONE!_ And you don’t care!! You don’t care about him, about us, about what I’ve lost! You won’t _allow_ yourself to care! And you truly expect me not to rebel?! To sit passively and not shout my anger to the heavens? You _REALLY_ expect me to just _let him go?!_ ”

He fisted the gem, pressed it to his heart.

“Well, I won’t be silent. I won’t stay idle. I lost him and now? _Now they will pay for taking him away from me._ ”

The Colonel had turned bone-pale. Beads of cold sweat rolled down his temples.

“Rogers, Rogers, have you gone mad?” he hissed. “This kind of talk will warrant you a blue ticket!”

Steve turned to him, eyes burning.

“Blue ticket me, then,” he said, defiant, his whole countenance luminous with his anger. He turned on his heel to march back outside, the Howling Commandos a steady wall flanking and surrounding him, a horde of Avenging Angels marching on to war.

“Wait!” Phillips shouted, sounding strangled. “Where do you think you’re going? Rogers! _Rogers!_ ”

Steve barely stopped his march. He just glanced back a moment, and the hatred in his eyes was chilling.

_“To burn Hydra to the ground.”_

  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I'm not the best judge, seeing that I wrote it and all; but I LOVE the last part, it gave me the chills. I feel so accomplished. I hope you liked it, too. ♥


	4. Chapter 4 - You're gonna wake up and see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve woke up with Bucky’s name on his lips.

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

**Author:** Nemesi.

**Beta:** Unbetaed! Feel free to write me if you catch an error! ♥

**Fandom:** Captain America.

**Continuity:** MCU.

**Genre:** Fluff &Angst. Romance. Light humor.

**Chapter Word Count:** 2039.

**Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

**Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky.

**Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

**Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warnings:** The crashing of the Valkyrie happens in this one. It’s dealt with real quickly though. After that, thought… comes the future.

**Summary:** Steve woke up with Bucky’s name on his lips.

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

**A** fter numbness came anger.

After anger--

No, nothing ever replaced _anger._

A fire that was larger than life, anger consumed him. It twisted like fumes around his agony and his guilt. His resolve and his despair. It cradled his feelings, making them shine like jewels.

But it _never_ left.

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

**S** teve went after Hydra like a hound from Hell, leaving scorched earth in his wake.

It didn’t take long to uncover the location of Schmidt’s stronghold: a fortress carved deep in the side of a mountain, swathed with layers and layers of frost and snow.

As Steve stood watching the facility, the snow whipping around him, he fancied he heard a scream echoing inside the wind. The scream of his own name. The same scream that had been ripped from Bucky’s lips as he had fallen, and that still came to him in his every dream when he bothered to lay down for sleep.

It was with that scream leading the way, that Steve went inside the fortress.

He fought. Calculating, cold, intense and precise; and all the more terrifying than he would have looked howling and thrashing like his grief demanded he did. He was a mute embodiment of fury, swathing through the Hydra soldiers like a scythe, reaping the flowers of his vengeance.

He stalked after Schmidt through the dimly lit corridors, across clanging catwalks, up an armed aircraft, implacable and impervious like a golem. Once the madman was gone, consumed by the same cube that had powered all of Hydra’s weapons, Steve felt nothing but hollowness spread inside him.

On weary feet he dragged himself to the cabin, dropped like a stone into the pilot seat and felt something inside him release, deflating like a hot air balloon. The beast of anger inside him had curled across his heart, its hunger momentarily sated, even if far from gone. And the reprieve plunged him into a state of clear-headed serenity the likes of which he hadn’t known since the night he had slept with Bucky curled over his heart.

A glance to the instruments revealed what Steve had already suspected - there was no way for him to bring the craft down safely. Again, he felt nothing. The realisation meant nothing. He _was_ nothing. Anger quenched, the golem was crumbling.

The only thing that seemed to be in working order was the radio. The line crackled and hissed, but held until the flustered operator managed to patch him with Peggy.

“Hey, Pegs,” he greeted, weariness in his tone.

“Steve, don’t you _dare,_ ” she ordered sharply, and Steve had no doubt that even Fate was cowering from her, somewhere in its burrow. A smile twitched valiantly at the corner of his lips, but it whilted quickly.

“I need to put this bird in the water.”

“Please, don’t. We have time. We can work it out.”

“No, we don’t. Right now, I'm in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die.”

“Steve…”

“I gotta, Pegs.”

“ _I know._ ”

The beloved little stone chinked against his dog tags as he pulled it out. He cupped it in his palm like a sacred thing, watching in a sort of trace as it sparkled quietly, _quietly._ Each little pulse of light felt to him like a letter in a secret alphabet that he had no hope to decipher, now that Bucky was gone.

“Hey, Pegs,” Steve began, refusing to look as he tilted the plane towards the water.

“Yes?” Peggy’s voice came to him, distorted by sadness and distance alike.

“Did they ever blue ticket me in the end?”

She hesitated. “Steve…”

“Because they should.”

“I’m not sure…”

“I _want_ them to. Don’t you see? It’ll be worth something in the end. I’m sure of it. Make sure that they do it. Publicly. Loudly. Drag my face across all the papers if they must. Take my memory to court, I don’t care. This can change things, however little. It can help. At least force them to _see_ the truth of it. To talk about it. It-- but oh Pegs! _Don’t let them touch Bucky!_ Swear to me. Swear to me, Peggy. Let them do whatever they want to me and my name, but don't let them touch Bucky. Don't let them touch---”

He never heard her answer.

The plane crashed.

Shook.

Rebound.

Sank.

Whiteness engulfed him.

Ice cold and silence.

And

t

h

e

n

 

d

 

e

 

a

 

t

  
  
  
  
  


h

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

**S** teve woke with a sigh on his lips.

“Bucky,” he said. “Swear to me. _Bucky…_ ”

His eyes opened to pale sunlight. There was a radio droning on somewhere in the room, something familiar enough not to catch his attention for several long moments. He stiffened as soon as he realised that the game playing on the radio was _too familiar_. He’d seen it in person in ‘41. There was no explanation why it was being aired right now.

Tensing abruptly, he swung his feet off the bed, heart in his throat as he looked around. The room was simple, and yet utterly alien in its simplicity. Too pristine, too clean, the walls freshly painted, the cotton of his sheets too soft, smelling not of soap and starch but something flowery and too potent. Outside the window, New York looked too bright, too clean. _Too silent_. Glossy and still like a photograph.

When the door opened, letting in an SSR agent, even she looked artificial: the hair, the clothes, the make up, everything on her looked just that tiny little bit _wrong_. Fabricated and fake. Her accent, when she called out a soft greeting, grated on the ears. Her speech pattern sounded clumsy, unpracticed. Steve wondered for a moment if he’d been caught by the Germans, and the whole farce was a way to keep him meek and complacent as they extracted informations from him.

Steve Rogers had never rolled over once in his life, though.

“Where am I?” he asked, voice tightly wound.

The woman smiled blandly.

“Why, you’re in a recovery room in New York city.”

“Where am I _really_?”

The bland smile tightened briefly at the corners. The woman made her eyes wider, her head tucked down like a shy blossom.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said, and even her voice, like her whole demeanour, had softened into an illusory sweetness.

Steve didn’t give an inch.

“The game you got playing in the radio? It’s from May, nineteen forty one. I know, ‘cause I was at the stadium.” He rose slowly to his full, imposing height. The woman blanched visibly, even under the thick layers of powder on her cheeks. She stiffened the way a soldier would go stiff, preparing for an attack. “Now, I’m gonna ask you again. _Where am I?_ ”

“Captain Rogers…” she began, that deceptive innocence back in place; but Steve saw her reach for a button of sorts under her sleeve, and was on the move before she could add a word.

He rushed forward even as two soldiers in black uniform burst from the door behind her. Steve grabbed one by the arm, knocked the second backwards and into a wall. Instead of rebounding off and falling on his knees, the man went clean through the wall, which turned out to be a thin layer of plaster held up by a light wood framework.

Realising the room he was standing in was little more than a glorified cardboard box, Steve rushed at the wall himself, went through it like a wrecking ball, and landed in a crouch in a wide, dark space with chrome-shiny pavement and glossy black walls, crawling with technicians in their white coats and an handful more of those black-clad soldiers.

Everything froze for an instant. Then Steve aimed for the farthest door and launched himself into a breakneck run. He cannon-balled out of the room and into a wide hall, skidded through several long corridors, leapt and vaulted down stairs on bare feet.

Dozen soldiers gave chase, but Steve didn’t worry about them - not until a man emerged from the shadows in one of the lower level rooms, appearing as though woven from the darkness itself. His uniform had nothing in common with the other soldiers, apart from being as black as tar. His face was completely hidden by a strange contraption of a mask, and he - _good Lord above, he was keeping pace with Steve._ Matching his inhuman speed, gliding and twirling over obstacles as effortlessly - no, even _more effortlessly_ , than Steve himself. He moved like a big jungle cat, with an economy of motion that spoke of coiled, powerful muscle, and a speed and grace that would’ve mesmerised, if it weren't so terrifyingly otherworldly.

They burst out of the building and into the street, running like an antelope with a panther on its heels. The city that met them outside was --

_Wrong._

It was _so wrong_.

The very air choked Steve, heavy with fumes. There were too many buildings, much too high. Too many colours. Too many, blinding lights. Bursts of sound, strident and deafening went through his eardrums. Bright and sleek automobiles crowded in the streets like immense critters, their motors rumbling powerfully. People in alien clothes - with too much bare skin on display and carrying strange bags and even stranger contraptions - parted like the sea as they rushed past. Despite the shock, Steve didn’t allow himself a pause.

He ran, he leapt, he skidded, he rolled, he jumped.

And through it all, the black soldier kept bounding after Steve, keeping pace effortlessly. Blood pumped in Steve’s ears, every breath speared through his chest and he was light-headed with confusion, high on adrenaline, his blood pumping through his veins like lava.

And then, as they reached the mouth of an alley, the Black Soldier tackled him. Steve went down like a stone, but still he fought, throwing punches, shimming his hips, using elbows and knees to try and free himself.

The Black Soldier countered him move by move, until Steve was trapped under his bulk, heart hammering and drained of any will to fight. He didn’t realise that the Black Soldier had lost his muzzle, not until he laughed quietly, and a rush of warm breath shivered down Steve’s cheek. The soldier’s hair was long and wavy, and it hung around their faces like a curtain.

“Slippery as a damn eel, ain’tcha Steve?” the Black Soldier asked.

Steve _froze_.

For a long moment, he didn’t dare look up. Didn’t dare, because his eyes might not confirm what his ears had him believe.

A long, long moment.

And then--

“ _Buck…_?” he forced around the lump in his throat.

And yes, _yes_ , there was no doubt about it - the sparkling sea-foam eyes, the golden skin, the plush pink lips curved just slightly at the corner in a grin that was all sorts of delightful. Even the smell of him was the same, sweat and gunpowder and _Bucky_.

Steve--

Steve couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d _tried_.

He surged up, pressed his mouth to Bucky’s like he _owned_ it, tugging the bottom lip between his teeth, plundering inside that smiling curve with his tongue, barely aware of the tears streaming down his own cheeks, of Bucky’s hands gentling him, caressing down his neck, his straining shoulders, stopping over his racing heart as if trying to cup it and contain its mad gallop.

When they burst apart, gasping open-mouthed and flushed, Steve banded both arms around Bucky’s body as tight as they would go, scrambling to tug him as close as it was physically possible. And Bucky went willingly, sprawled like a cat on Steve’s chest, touching their foreheads together in such a languorous, tender way, as if they’d done nothing but kiss, never belonged anywhere but into each other’s arms, since the beginning of time.

Then, when reality started to seep into their private bubble with its sounds and colours, Bucky leaned back, eyes sparkling with mischief and greeted:

“Good morning, husband mine. Did you have a good nap?”

Which.

Yeah, no.

_What?_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**~TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *makes jazz hands* TA-DAH!  
> No, but seriously. Were you expecting that?  
> And now, even more seriously...  
> ...next chapter marks the end of this part. I'm honestly torn whether to mark this work as finished when the next chapter is up, and then make a new story for the second part; mark it as finished and then reopen it when I start posting the second part; or if I should simply go on adding chapters to this work.


	5. Chapter 5 - So who can stop me if I decide that you're my destiny?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...they think we’re _married_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll repeat it here because it's important: it's BRIEF and Steve's quick to get incensed smack down the stupid talk, but Bucky recalls mean, mean homophobic words someone told him back during the war, which are HORRID. Also, Steve keeps talking and despairing about how homosexual men were treated during the war, and what he says about it is brief, but might be upsetting.

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 5:** So who can stop me if I decide that you're my destiny?

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** [Shirokou](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokou/profile)

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

**Chapter Word Count:**

**Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warnings: Bucky recalls mean, mean homophobic words someone told him back during the war, which are HORRID. Also, Steve keeps talking and despairing about how homosexual men were treated during the war, and what he says about it is brief, but might be upsetting.**

**Warning #2:** Things gets heated towards the end, but, uh, a wild cockblocker appears? *sheepish*

 **Summary:** They think we’re married?

  


≡ ☆ ≡

  


**“T** hey think we’re married?”

“For the millionth time: _yes, Steve_. Keep up, will you?”

“Married?”

“Yes.”

“You an’ I?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“ _Married??_ ”

“How is _that_ any harder to believe than you sleeping under the ice for 70 years?” Bucky asked, wiggling his nose in that adorable way he had. “Am I that unmarriable? Should I get offended?”

Immediately, Steve reached out to grasp both of Bucky’s hands in his own.

“No! No! _I’m honoured to be married to you--_ ” he realised he’d used the present tense only after a cheshire grin had spread across Bucky’s face. A blush burst across his cheeks, but he pressed on: “It’s just,” he began, then stopped, feeling torn.

Bucky started rubbing a thumb across Steve’s hands, and Steve felt himself relax, glad for the closeness and patience. He started fiddling with Bucky’s fingers in turn, not quite sure if he was trying to memorize them or comparing the shocking reality of them with the loving memory.

Leaving the alley was all a blur to Steve. He half remembered a warm hand pulling him to his feet and leading him to a parked bike. Riding to a building that speared the sky like a chrome and glass needle, the wind on his face, Bucky’s body hot and hard in the circle of his arms. An elevator of sorts, and then this - the apartment, being lead to the bed that smelled faintly of Bucky and gently helped to sit down. His own hands shooting up and pulling until Bucky was sitting next to him, and then never letting go of him.

Steve couldn’t say how long the trip took, or in which part of New York they were exactly. The only thing he’d been painfully aware of the whole time was Bucky. Bucky. _Bucky._

Even now, he had trouble looking away for longer than a heartbeat. His eyes kept moving back to Bucky, taking every detail in, half expecting to wake any second now, in some military hospital in WW2, alone and heartbroken.

“Men… men in love are… _were_ killed, Buck,” he whispered, holding Bucky’s gaze. “They were oppressed. Persecuted. The Colonel wanted to blue ticket me only for saying that I was grieving for you. How did they go from that to thinking we were married and _being okay with it?_ ”

“They did it. They blue-ticketed you,” Bucky said after a long pause, softly, and pulled their entwined hands to his chest.

“They did?”

Bucky hummed a gentle affirmative.

“It caused quite an uproar. Not many could wrap their mind around the idea of Captain America being queer.”

Steve let that sink for a moment before shaking his head. He had been moving closer without realising it, and he let his head drop in the curve of Bucky’s neck.

“I… I still don’t understand what happened.”

“Steve, my Sun and Stars--” Bucky singsonged, voice teasing and warm with affection. Steve felt heat build behind his eyes, for no other reason that he was allowed this, when he had thought it was all lost to him. “You had a tantrum to make Scarlett O’Hara proud, showed the Colonel something round and sparkly that I’d given you and that you wore on the same chain as your dogtags - what do you think they pulled from all that?”

It took him a moment, but then realisation struck, and he pulled back to look Bucky in the eye.

“They thought… they thought you’d given me _a ring_?”

“And that we got through the closest thing to marriage a gay couple could aspire for at the time.”

“How…?”

“Dum Dum told them I gave the ring to you in France. That we took the Howlies as witnesses and exchanged our vows in a meadow near a lake, with Monty as our officiant. I went to my knees in a patch of sunlight, and you leaned over me and cupped my jaw before you said yes. You were smiling like the sun breaking through clouds, and the Howlies laughed when you put a flower in my hair. But before you could move away I took your hand in mine and put a kiss in the middle of your palm. And then I swore I’d be yours forever. ‘Till the End of the Line.”

Shook, Steve sagged until he could press his forehead to their joined hands, and for a moment he thought he felt Bucky press a fleeting kiss to the crown of his head, before resting his cheek there.

It was--it was _such a beautiful image_. So pure. He could see it so perfectly, crystal clear and bright enough to hurt, projected on the dark screen of his lowered eyelids.

“But it wasn’t _allowed,_ ” Steve said in a lost kid’s voice.

“Which is exactly why you exploded like that, wasn’t it?” Bucky murmured against Steve’s hair. “Peggy told us. You couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand that people could be so cruel. That love wasn’t allowed to be _just love_. You wanted to make ripples. You wanted to take a stand against all bigotry and hate. You wanted people to stop living in secrecy and fear…

“Oh, and what ripples you made, Steve. The Howlies made sure of it. They told all kind of stories. I was courting you, and everybody knew. And Peggy… Peggy once told me that you were smitten with me. And that our love was the worst-kept secret of the army. So it wasn’t hard to sell. They just embellished the truth.

“I don’t know if the world we live in now is any different from one where the people of America didn’t believe their greatest hero was married to a man. But I know this - you made a whole hell of a difference for so many scared kids. For so many lost youth. They saw themselves in you, and fought on and on and on for acceptance. For freedom.”

“But you…” Steve chanced, in that lost kid’s voice still. He thought he felt another kiss being pressed to his hair; and then Bucky was releasing him, sitting back with a thoughtful hum.

“Me?” he encouraged, voice so painfully warm. Steve had missed him so much. _So much._ He could hardly breathe with it.

“...you were with _Howard._ ”

“I _had sex_ with Howard,” Bucky corrected, pairing blunt words with a voice like a healing balm. “You must have known that I never loved _him. You must’ve, Steve._ ” He searched deep into Steve’s eyes, pinning him with this gaze he had, like an animal predator.

“I thought so,” Steve croaked, feeling shivers skitter all along his skin. “I think. I think that I _knew_ so. Deep down.” That he’d had Bucky’s heart and soul, even as Howard laid claim on his body.

Bucky smiled at him, softly.

“I wasn’t even subtle about it, Steve. I feel like I’ve given you everything _but_ a ring to prove my devotion.”

“But then _why_ \---?”

“Why?”

“Why were you with _him_?”

Bucky faltered a moment, looking down in shame. Steve watched as his jaw tightened painfully, fine lines appearing at the corner of his eyes as his whole face scrunched up with hurt. _Don’t look away from me,_ Steve wanted order. _Don’t you ever look away from me again!_ But Bucky looked vulnerable all of a sudden, so all Steve managed to do was reach out and gently tilt Bucky’s face up until they were eye to eye. Bucky blinked, biting his lower lip.

“I was told…” he began, soft enough that Steve had to strain to hear him. “I was told that no matter how much I wished, you’d never love me back. That the most I could have was crumbles, and that I should make sure not to sully our hero. I was told--told that I wasn’t _worthy of you_. And that even if I hadn’t been the army’s dirty secret boogeyman, the serum was supposed to have made you perfect, anyway. And a perfect man would _never_ willingly succumb to the sickness and desire another man...”

“I’ll kill them,” Steve broke him off, voice and limbs trembling with fury. “Whoever told you this, _I’ll kill them_. Love is not sick. Love is _love._ What’s worthiness got to do with it? You’re the best man I’ve ever know, Buck. And _gender?_ Feelings are not in any way dependant on _gender._ ”

Instead of recoiling from the scorching heat of that wrath, Bucky just froze for a moment, looking even deeper at Steve before smiling. A disarming, wide smile that swept away Steve’s anger like it never was.

“Well, you gotta get in line, pal. The old man doesn’t have that big of a fanclub nowadays, and I honestly think Pepper gets precedence when it comes to maiming him. Not even Tony’s as invested in that as she is.”

Steve made a soft, confused-sounding noise.

“I… have no idea who those people _are._ ”

“Amazing ‘swhat they are. You’re gonna love them, I promise.”

Something flashed across Steve’s face, and his breath hitched. He was still touching Bucky’s face, he realised distantly. He let his hand drop like a stone, and only curled further into himself when Bucky nudged him gently.

“What is it, Steve?”

“It’s just… it’s been _days_ for me, but you… it sounds like you have lived a long life. Met all kind of people.”

Bucky tilted his head this way and that, trying for levity.

“Well, one day I’ll get to tell every sordid detail of what I’ve been up to for the last… what, twenty years, give or take? But you’re right, I’m no spring chicken no more, no.”

“It’s been more than twenty years? Since you last saw me?”

Warning bells sounded inside Bucky’s head at Steve’s tone, replacing the incredulous bliss of their reunion with cold dread.

 _“Steve…”_ he began, but Steve shook his head and scooted as far away from Bucky as he could. He made an effort to compose himself - to sit straighter, to look bigger, sturdier - invulnerable. He let his eyes slide over Bucky again, assessing. The truth was that Bucky hadn’t aged a day: he looked exactly as Steve remembered him. The impossibly beautiful young man. The enfant terriblé. The good soldier. The good _man_.

Of twenty years ago.

Steve tried on a smile, but it looked broken. Sadder than a smile had any right to be. The cold feeling spread when Bucky realised - Steve was gearing up for a fight. Getting ready to be _hurt_.

“So…” Steve swallowed hard. “Who have you been giving trinkets to, these days?”

_Who does your soul belong to now?_

“Steve--”

“Are you… married, for real? Are Tony and Pepper your kids? Do I get to meet a Mrs Barnes?”

_Your body?_

“Steve…”

“Or would that be too awkward? Your wife meeting your husband? Ex-husband now, I guess? Or… fake husband is more accurate, isn’t it?”

_Your heart?_

“Steve,” Bucky sighed out his name again, which made Steve shiver for some reason. He rose to his feet, and held a hand out when Steve opened his mouth in protest. His fingertips stopped just shy of Steve’s lips, as if Bucky didn’t dare touch - wouldn’t _presume_ he was allowed to - but the request for silence was clear.

Steve settled down, watching as Bucky walked the few steps that separated the bed from the closet. He opened it gingerly, visibly steeling himself before using both arms to draw out a huge filing box. It looked like the ones the SSR used to store their folders, an unassuming brown thing, sturdy despite its lightness.

Bucky carried it to the bed where Steve was still sitting, confused but expectant, and placed it on the bed in front of him like a offering.

He wouldn’t take off the lid though, not for several long seconds. In the end, he gestured at Steve to do it, and Steve complied carefully, unsure of what he might find inside.

He carefully put the lid beside him on the bed, then peered in. Honestly, he couldn’t make head or tails of what he was seeing. When he glanced up at Bucky, he was shocked to see the faintest dusting of pink spread across the bridge of his nose. He remained silent though, gesturing at Steve to dig in, which he did, still with that careful hesitancy.

There must have been hundreds of assorted knick-knacks inside the box. Steve’s hand closed around a bright glass marble, transparent and with a flaming star floating in its core. Then he fished out a long white feather, the tip stained an artificial blue. A tin of army ration chocolate. A pressed Lily preserved in a plastic covering, deep red and huge. An adorable figurine of a raccoon standing on two feet, eyes heavily circled in black, holding hands with a golden puppy, also standing on his back legs like a human. A piece of blue glass, smoothed by the ocean. A miniature book, smaller than Steve’s thumb, but with actual text inside. A wrapped piece of red licorice. A ticket to Coney Island. A silver coin. A bottle no bigger than a fingernail containing a grain of rice with a name written on it. A Dodgers trading card. A carillon mechanism, with its minuscule crank.

It was only when the box surrendered a postcard of the Grand Canyon, that Steve began to connect the dots. The back of the postcard read: “Thinking of you always, my Darling Captain”, the text smudged by suspicious drops. Several other words surrounded those ones, all erased furiously away with lots and lots of ink, and also similarly smudged.

Fierce emotion gripped Steve by the throat, tears needling his eyes.

“All of these,” he choked out, “are they all for…?”

“For you, Steve.”

“But I was _dead._ ”

“Not _to me_. _Never_ to me.”

“It’s been twenty years.”

“Or seventy. But you’re still _the one_.”

“You _still_...?”

“ _Always_ , Steve.”

Slowly, they leaned over the open box, their lips the singular point of contact between them. They sighed into each other’s mouth, and time stood still.

Their second kiss wasn’t as desperate as the first. It wasn’t an act of controlled _plundering_ , fuelled by shock and adrenaline and confusion and grief and helpless relief. It was an affirmation. Tender and warm and lingering. Steve thought giddily that it wasn’t a second, or even a hundredth kiss. It was a _married_ kiss, and he laughed against Bucky’s mouth at the thought, dizzy with adoration. Bucky just laughed along with him, somehow never breaking the kiss.

“What?” he asked, grin still pressed against Steve’s own grin.

“Just happy,” Steve answered back, giving Bucky another kiss, and then one more, until he lost count.

When their bodies inevitably gravitated closer, they felt the box get squished between them. Steve skittered away so quickly, so obviously worried about the box, it made Bucky chuckle. Steve began to put the trinkets back, and felt the bed dip as Bucky slinked closer. He hooked his chin over Steve’s shoulder and peered at his hands, humming softly whenever Steve commented on whatever he was holding.

By the time the trinkets were all back where they belonged and the box carefully placed at a safe distance on the floor, Bucky’s mouth was a gentle pressure on Steve’s shoulder, the contact unassuming and comforting in the most beautiful way. But Steve couldn’t resist ducking and capturing that mouth with his own with a fierceness that surprised even him.

Bucky opened up beautifully to him, and suddenly, there was a _promise_ in that kiss. Heat built up and up and _up_ , made Steve’s breath turn ragged and blood rush in his ears. Barely aware of what he was doing, he pushed Bucky back onto the bed, blanketed him with his own body, kissing him slowly and deeply all the while. _All the while._ Oh, he could get used to this. He could get _addicted_. So easily. He could do this all day, and all night, for the whole of forever, and he’d still want Bucky more than anything else in the world, still he wouldn’t be satisfied.

When they broke the kiss Bucky made a noise that went through Steve like lightning, making heat bloom across his chest. Bucky leaned up to press the softest of kisses against Steve’s open, panting mouth, fingers unbearably tender as they skimmed the line of Steve’s jaw, his cheek, the side of his neck. Steve moved into Bucky as if magnetized, delved hungrily inside Bucky’s mouth, drinking him in, pushing his thighs open with his own hips and rocking closer, feeling Bucky arch against him beautifully, body melting against Steve’s own as if they were two halves of a single whole. Steve felt humbled and hot and delirious and simply awash with marvel. His blood burned, his skin felt hungry in a way he couldn’t explain, hungry for Bucky’s own. Suddenly, it was as if everything had ceased to exist, everything but Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, his warmth, his scent, his skin, his body moving underneath Steve’s, Bucky, Bucky, _Bucky_ \--

“Ye Gods,” a voice drawled from behind him, just about giving Steve a heart attack. “I honestly feel so attacked, right now. I come here bearing gifts, and what do I see? A handsome stranger playing tonsil hockey with Papa Bear. The horror! The trauma! Do you know how many years of therapy _this_ will add to my list?”

Bucky groaned like a man under torture, knocking his head back against the pillow. Steve glanced back at the man who had appeared like a ghost in the doorway, and froze so completely that when Bucky put a hand to his chest and pushed, Steve just rolled over like dead weight.

“First of all,” Bucky began, his voice wrecked and his hair a beautiful mess. “You know perfectly well who this is, don’t even front on that.” The man shifted until his hip was leaning against the doorframe, peering over his obnoxious red-tinted glasses as if to say: “and?”. “Second, you’re not even _attending_ therapy, no matter how much we beg, and third…” Bucky’s voice softened a smudge. It wasn’t something that many would’ve caught, but it hooked claws inside Steve’s consciousness. “…you’ve used Papa Bear all last month.”

The man’s automatic response was to wiggle his nose in a way that was so familiar, it sent Steve’s brain reeling back in surprise.

“ _Have I?_ ” he asked dubiously.

“Yup,” Bucky confirmed. He was completely focused on the newcomer, but he was still touching Steve, caressing his wrist like it was unthinkable to break the contact now that they were together.

“Ugh, no, no way, _nope_ , I hate being predictable. Predictability is for losers. Time for a change, I guess.”

“Afraid so.”

“But Papa Bear _fits_!”

“Then keep using it.”

“That’s _so helpful_ ,” the man informed Bucky, doing the grown-up version of a pout which--nope, it was definitely still _a pout._

Bucky shrugged.

“Thanks, I do _try_.”

“Just for that sass I'll be using Papa Bear all this month, too.”

“Whatever you say, Tony.”

Bucky got to his feet - _flowed_ , really. His grace in this new era was tenfold what Steve remembered from the war, something as otherworldly as Steve’s own, but even more effortless, hypnotizingly fluid.

With an ease that spoke of intimacy, Bucky reached up. Tony’s face lit up so completely at the prospect of a touch, his body shifting in such a subtle but telling way, that it set Steve’s teeth immediately on edge. That old beast of anger grumbled out a warning from within his chest cavity, but Steve forced it to settle, clenching his fists as he watched on.

The hug that followed wasn’t much of a hug - just a sideways squeeze and a bit of rocking, Bucky’s arm thrown around Tony’s shoulders and their heads bent close together. Folded under Bucky’s arm, Tony seemed suddenly so _young,_ despite having the appearance of a man at least a decade older than Bucky. For a moment, they were the perfect picture of siblings. The playfulness did little to soothe Steve’s sudden possessiveness.

With a final squeeze, Bucky released Tony and sauntered towards the door. When he looked back, his eyes were soft and bright and so full of warmth. And it was all, _all_ for Steve. Nobody else but _Steve_.

 _That_ helped the jealousy situation quite a bit.

“I believe I heard something about gifts in there. Why don’t we go somewhere that’s not _my bed_ to talk about it?” Bucky asked, his grin swift and charming, before disappearing out into the hall.

Steve felt a tug in the middle of his heart, and found himself drifting to his feet and following like a puppy on a leash, his chest ballooning with a helpless swell of adoration. He had his Bucky back. His Bucky. His--

A sudden vise clamped around his wrist, shifting his wrist bones together to the point of pain. Steve jerked around, fury in his countenance, and Tony was suddenly in his face, the eccentric affability of moments before completely gone, replaced by a tight mask of anger.

“Okay, Capsicle,” Tony hissed, tone urgent and tight. “We’ve got, like, 38 seconds before Bucky realises Jarvis made the room soundproof. I don’t care who you are, and what you think you’re doing, but you have no right to be all over Bucky like that. And don’t go and say something stupid like “Bucky’s mine”, now. Because he’s not.”

Gritting his teeth in annoyance, Steve tried to tug his wrist free, and was stunned when he found that he couldn’t. A gauntlet of sorts, bright red and gold, had appeared around Tony’s hand, and the metal fingers were clamped so tightly around Steve’s flesh that it was impossible to break free. Fury streamed up his throat like fire.

“Bucky is not a _thing,_ ” he hissed back, voice just as threatening as Tony’s. “He doesn’t _belong_ to anyone. He’s free to do what he wants, to _be_ with whoever _he_ wants, and _you_ have no say in what he does. But Bucky and I love each other, so we belong _together_ , and you’re a sad man if you can’t tell the difference.”

Tony snorted.

“Yeah, right. I grew up with the fairytale same as all of America. But I also _know_ the truth.”

“Truth?” Steve challenged, going still like a boulder is still.

“Yeah,” Tony said, releasing Steve’s wrist like he was throwing away a bug he’d caught. “That Bucky’s loved you since the war, he’s loved you all this fuckin’ time and pined for you like some war widow, but you? You never, _ever_ loved him back.”

He adjusted his shirt, the gauntlet vanished like it had never been. Jovial mask firmly in place, he skipped out after Bucky, whining about being left behind, and what if the stranger bad-touched him, was Tony allowed to go all IronMan on him????

Steve stared at the empty doorway, chest feeling like it was caving in.

He’d forgotten, somehow. His grief had turned into relief - into _happiness_ \- so utterly and so quickly, it had blindsided him, left him floating like a drunk or a man in a delirium. But Tony had a point, didn’t he? Steve loved Bucky. He loved Bucky like he’d never loved anything or anyone else in his life, loved him like no one in the Universe had, or would _ever_ love.

But he’d never said it.

For years - _decades_ \- Bucky had believed his feelings to be one-sided. That the tender feeling between them was a just special brand of friendship or devotion, chaste and platonic, instead of the fire that it truly was. It was a miracle that Steve had been allowed this close, that his kisses had been accepted, his touch welcomed.

But he wasn’t _Steve Rogers_ for nothing. He grabbed the sudden panic drowning him and threw it as far away from himself as he could. Shoulders squaring, he ran after the love of his life.

He had been given a second chance to prove his feelings.

And he was damn well going to _use_ it.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**~End of Part 1**

**TBC**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it for the first part.  
> Hope you liked reading it even half as much as I loved writing it. ♥♥♥  
> There's more to come (either I'll re-open this same story, or add a new one in the series), so... stay tuned!


	6. Chapter 6 - Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Should we really discuss suspiciously nefarious plans in front of the guy who just got dumped 70 years in the future?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are! A little interlude to tide you over, but part 2 has officially begun!  
> Thank you SO MUCH for all the amazing comments, reviews, support, and for all the kudos! I'm staying at work late today for, like, the 6th day in a row, but I promise!! I'm answering each and every one of you marvellous people ♥

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 6:** Interlude

 **Author:** Nemesi.

**Beta:** [Shirokou](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokou/profile)

**Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

**Chapter Word Count:**

**Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/it’s-all-Tony-fangirling-really/hopefully ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warning:**

**Summary:** Should we really discuss suspiciously nefarious plans in front of the guy who just got dumped 70 years in the future?

  
  
  


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**A** s it turned out, Tony’s “gifts” was a heap of classified information he shouldn’t have access to, and also--

“A house?” Steve repeated, flabbergast. “You’re giving me… _a house?_ Just like that?”

“I’m giving you the _chance_ to use a house. Which is mine. There’s a difference. Like, you’ll be forced into years of servitude if you break anything kind of difference.”

“Tony,” Bucky warned, not looking up from the folder he was perusing. It wasn’t an actual folder made out of actual paper, but some sort of mirage that Tony had conjured out of thin air with a flick of his wrist. Steve had been awed by the dreamlike technology; but he’d also been distracted by the instinct to tuck away the unruly lock of hair that kept getting into Bucky’s eyes as he read, so.

“...days of servitude?” Tony ventured.

“Tony.”

“Hours?”

“ _Tony._ ”

“...forced to apologize? In written words? And repair the damage?”

“Better,” Bucky allowed. He wiped the mirage out of existence, and finally moved the hair away from his face. “I don’t like this,” he said, jaw flexing nervously. “Why is SHIELD planning to send Steve to a remote location and keep him isolated for the next several months? How would _that_ help ease him back into society? What’s the endgame?”

“Should we really discuss suspiciously nefarious plans in front of the guy who just got dumped 70 years in the future?” Tony asked. And when both Steve and Bucky looked quizzically at him he offered: “Too much of a load too soon? Trauma? PTSD? You wouldn’t even let me tie my shoelaces on my own after Afghanistan, let alone _talk_ about Afghanistan? Rings any bells? No?”

Bucky drew the corner of his bottom lip in his mouth, kneading it nervously between his teeth. Hesitant, he glanced over at Steve.

“Steve…”

“I can take it,” Steve said, chin held high and almost defiant. “More than that, I have every right to know if someone is making plans about me.”

Bucky blinked, and then his eyes went soft with emotion. He held his right hand out for Steve, and in any other setting, Steve might have hesitated, but no more. _No more._ He let Bucky take his hand and then used the hold to reel him in, tilting their foreheads together. Bucky looked surprised, but also pleased in a way that warmed Steve all over.

“I know you can take it, you punk,” he assured Steve, warm breath ghosting against Steve’s mouth. “I just worry if it’s right to dump all this on you all at once.”

“I tumbled out of the SSR laboratory with a body twice its usual size, witnessed the murder of my benefactor and then ran across all Brooklyn to catch a Nazy spy in the next 12 seconds. I think it’s safe to say I have an uncanny ability to adjust.”

“Don’t overdo it,” Bucky gently rebuked him. “Everybody has their limit, Steve. Let yourself keep a slow pace, for once.”

“Then give it to me in morsels, I don’t care. I just need to know, Buck. And I promise I’ll tell you if I’m about to keel over in shock,” he added cheekily, nuzzling their noses together, seeking after a kiss.

“OH MAI GAWD,” Tony groused. “You’re disgusting. This is disgusting. How are you so sweet? It’s unreal. I think I need my teeth checked for cavities.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but stepped out of the circle of Steve’s arms (and when they had gone around him remained a mystery). “So, SHIELD plans to isolate Steve. Why?”

“Destabilise him,” Tony guessed. “Make him more pliable to their demands. Probably they want him in the Avengers team. For publicity if nothing else. You know what having Captain America on board will mean for Fury’s pet project?”

“Basically,” Steve said tightly, “you’re telling me that the organisation you work with wants to turn me into their puppet?”

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath.

“...a brainwashed weapon,” he murmured, and his voice sounded so soft in the ringing silence, he looked so fragile and stunned suddenly - looked like he might be blown away at any moment, more dream than real man all over again - that it made Steve want to anchor Bucky with his own body, to hold him tight and never let go. “It’s… happened. Before.”

“Fury’s an old bastard,” Tony conceded, “but brainwashing seems too much, even for him. I place my bet on a publicity stunt.”

“Did the order to isolate me come from this guy?”

“Higher up, actually,” Tony told Steve thoughtfully, flicking his fingers. Another floating window of light appeared in front of him, and he pursed his lips as he studied the contents. “But the files just aren’t here. Which isn’t suspicious _at all_.”

“But he okayed it, thought,” Bucky pointed out.

“Uh, he actually forwarded the housing request to _me_ , so he miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight be hoping for the Capnapping to go tits up.”

“And yet, you are going to just… do what they want?”

“Nope, nossir, nope,” Tony denied, slashing his hands through the air. “I’m making it _look_ like I’m sending the Capsicle in solitary confinement in Bumbfuckville, Middleo’Nowherida like they asked.”

Bucky lifted both eyebrows.

“While in truth you are…?”

“Uhm. Sending the Capsicle in Bumbfuckville, Middleo’Nowherida, with Jarvis in tow?”

Bucky gave a sharp nod.

“Right,” he said. “He shouldn’t be left alone.” Then before Tony could enjoy the feeling of accomplishment, he added: “I’m going with,” totally bursting his bubble.

“ _BUT!_ ”

“I’m not letting Steve out of my sight,” Bucky said in a low rumble like a wolf’s. Steve will forever and ever deny the pleased shiver that rippled through him. “And before you object: this isolation attempt is fishy as hell, there’s no one else I’d trust to have Steve’s six right now but the two of us, and you need to stay here and find your-” he made finger quotes here “-boyfriend before Fury does, don’t you?”

Tony clutched his chest with a horrified look on his face.

“How dare you say it like that, Brucie-Bear is my _husbando_.”

 _That_ gave Bucky pause.

“Wait, he’s been upgraded to husband status? Since when?”

“Since the rage monsters showdown in Harlem, Papa Bear. Do keep up.”

“Tony… no matter what you might believe, marrying someone without them knowing is not the epitome of romance.”

“It worked out well for you!”

Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“I was a widower for more than twenty years, what are you talking about?”

Tony made jazz-hands towards Steve.

“And not an hour ago I caught you about to get the D - or give the D, whichever, there was some serious boning about to occur either way - so it clearly worked out perfectly, what are _you_ talking about?”

“Oh Lord,” Steve mumbled into his hands, horrified by the casual remarks on his non-existent sex life. He was was steadily turning into the human equivalent of a fire engine, but he went mostly unnoticed.

“But Steve _knew_ me,” Bucky pointed out. “We have a history. We…” he started, but then paused, letting the sentence drop, visibly swallowing down whatever had been about to escape him. _We what?_ Steve wanted - _ached_ \- to know.

_We._

_What?_

But Bucky held his tongue, and: “Dr Banner doesn’t know _you,_ ” he settled for in the end.

“He _does,_ ” Tony boasted. “Let’s be honest - I’m TONY STARK. Nobody _doesn’t know_ me. That alone will sweep Brucie off his feet when he finally meets me IRL.”

Pause.

Breath.

Doubt rippled across Tony’s face, like reeds in the wind.

“I mean, it _should?_ I mean, he’s not gonna be disappointed, right? Right. A _Stark_ doesn’t disappoint. I’m a genius. Certified. And a billionaire. Superhero. Philanthropist? He’s gonna love the philanthropy part. And also I like the jolly green bean he turns into! Wanna go all Elmyra Duff on him, actually? That’s GOTTA earn me points. But - he can’t know that right off the bat. Can he now? But, well, still, he should know me. Know _about me,_ at least? He must have heard my name at some stage? Like, in passing? Or, or read it? Somewhere? Like, in an article or another? There’s that nice one about the presynaptic and postsynaptic activation rates in the artificial neurogenetic modeling of--Oh, no, _no, no_ , please tell me he doesn’t know my name from the army thing, he CAN’T know about the army thing--”

They watched Tony hurry out of the room, talking top-speed to the ceiling (Steve didn’t dare ask), asking frantically how long it’d take to erase “all the things” from “all of everywhere”. Steve wasn’t even that fazed when the ceiling started offering counsel and calculations in a poised British voice.

A minute went by before Tony poked his head back in.

“That wasn’t me okaying your romantic getaway. But kudos for the distraction tactic.”

Bucky, who had been looking at the door as if waiting just for that, let a slow, slow grin spread across his face.

“I don’t need permission, but I’ll take the kudos. And also some high-tech toys for our stay in Bumbfuckville would be nice.”

Tony tried glaring, deflated more quickly than one would expect, then finally ducked out of the room with a long string of grumbles.

Silence filled the room as Tony walked further and further away. Then,

“...rage monsters showdown in Harlem?” Steve asked, not quite sure he wanted to know. Bucky rubbed the bridge of his nose, huffing out a laugh.

“Oh, the things I have to tell you about this brave new world, pal.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~End of the Interlude~**

**TBC**


	7. Chapter 7 - Nothing could keep us apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they stood there, a little transfixed, the mist began to recede. Beams of sunlight spilled in moving patches on the ground, and the shape of their new house began to appear behind the parting waves of grey.

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 7:** Nothing could keep us apart

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed!

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 3739

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warning:** It’s all all warm and cute and sexy, but then Steve HAS to be told about the arm. HAS TO. It’s a true shock, though. The boy cries.

 **Summary:** As they stood there, a little transfixed, the mist began to recede. Beams of sunlight spilled in moving patches on the ground, and the shape of their new house began to appear behind the parting waves of grey.

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  
  


**D** espite how much Bucky worried, some time in isolation sounded like a good idea to Steve. Maybe not _months_ of it - even if the War was over, Steve didn’t have it in him to stay idle, especially when a conspiracy seemed to loom over him. But a spell to regroup, to gather his strength and his faculties, seemed like the best thing that could be allowed him.

Ever since childhood, life had been tempering Steve into a person who could easily withstand solitude, even crave it at times. Like a plant pushing through concrete, he persevered in the harshest condition.

Growing up, he’d had no other family but his ma, who pulled so many shifts at the hospital in order to give him a dignified life, that he barely ever saw her. He’d had no other friend but Arnie Roth, who had been as small and frail as Steve, and could seldom go out and play. He’d had no other comfort but art, which would cocoon him into a world of makebelieve when he needed the escape, and anchor him to reality at times when all he had were bitterness and fading memories.

War had simply finished the job, refining Steve into a man that was more comfortable in the damp shadows of a trench, blood in his nostrils and putrid leaves as his bedding, than he’d ever be in a hustling, cheerful street, hot sweating bodies jostling into him from all sides.

In the end, he felt it down into his bones that he might have an actual _need_ for this brief escape. Grief and war and falling and drowning and freezing to death and then waking and grieving still - and yes, even the glimpses of this surreal New York he’d seen while running away from Bucky - it had all shaken him deeper than he cared to admit. Time and quiet and meditation seemed like the best concoction to glue the frailing parts of him back together.

And while he knew that he wouldn’t have felt _lonely_ in a solitary retreat, some part of him was terribly relieved that Bucky would be sharing his space. Steve had missed him too deeply, grieved for him much too violently not to need him close now. Skin-to-skin, eye-to-eye, breathing-his-same air kind of close. Bucky’s mere presence gave him such strength, that Steve wondered what kind of broken man he would have been, if he hadn’t found Bucky waiting for him in the future.

It was a pure caprice of Fate that he’d never, _ever_ have to know.

Of course, he said nothing of this to Bucky; nothing of the relief, the grief, the unnameable things trembling through the core of him, making him wistful and sad and relieved in equal parts.

Steve Rogers was many things, after all; but open with his feelings was not one of them.

  
  
  


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Tony’s Quinjet took them westwards, towards the mountains. It dropped them in a clearing in the middle of a fenced-in preserve, and then flew away as silently as it had come. It had no other pilot but Tony’s own AI, JARVIS.

Steve and Bucky busied themselves for a few minutes checking their baggage, the equipment Tony had given them, the boxes of food and duffels of clothes. When they finally looked up, it was like being inside of a painting.

It was early enough in the morning that the top of the trees were still crowned by swirls of mist. The air was crisp and fragrant with the scent of green things, resinous and rich. Underfoot the ground was dry, but deeper into the forest the leaf litter laid thick and undisturbed, sparkling wet with dew. There was a river not too far, its faint rushing voice barely audible to Steve’s enhanced senses. He wondered if there was a pond somewhere close, perhaps even a lake. Being a Brooklynite down to the marrow of his bones, bodies of water had always fascinated Steve. Even the smallest lake sparked his imagination with pictures of cool and sheeny things, floating secretly in the obscure depths. He wasn’t sure if after the Valkyrie water still fascinated or repulsed him. It called to him, in a sense. He just wasn’t quite sure if it was a nice call.

As they stood there, a little transfixed, the mist began to recede. Beams of sunlight spilled in moving patches on the ground, and the shape of their new house began to appear behind the parting waves of grey. It sat like a prissy cat on top of a gently sloping hill, backdropped by a gorgeous line of trees. An unusual two-story cottage with a chimney on the roof, windows like drooping eyes and a front porch with a sturdy-looking railing.

Bucky lead the way through was must’ve been a garden once upon a time, and up to the small porch. Despite its modest, almost ancient appearance, the house was a technological wonder. The door opened for them only after it had scanned Bucky’s fingerprints, recognized their voice and perhaps even their eyes, Steve wasn’t quite sure. Bucky put a metal disk on the panel beside the door, and a moment after, JARVIS’s low, pleasant voice wished them a pleasant stay from somewhere in the ceiling.

The inside of the cottage looked dusty, but there was no detectable smell in the air. It looked cosy, intimate and welcoming with its stone fireplace, the minuscule dining table and wooden chairs, the soft-looking rugs and comfy little couch. The biggest piece of furniture on the whole floor was a bookshelf that looked almost curved under the weight of dozens of thick, colourful tomes.

The living room lead directly into the kitchen, which was also small, warm-toned and welcoming like something straight out of Steve’s dearest memories. It had wooden countertops with grey marble, an old fashioned stove, and a bulky fridge that Steve could easily imagine covered in magnets and notes. The water that came out of the faucet was frigid cold, but it was clean and tasted delicious. For some inexplicable reason, Bucky dunked his head under the stream with a whoop of delight, and when he tossed his hair back, he cast a wave of droplets that sparkled like fireflies in the sunlight. The back of his neck now looked wet and soft and strangely inviting. Steve felt the urge to put his mouth to the damp skin. To chase each single, runaway droplet with his tongue and then gently close his teeth around Bucky’s flesh, suckling until it bloomed a pretty red, until groans and mewls of pleasure came out from Bucky’s throat.

Steve breathed out the urge like a dragon might breath fire.

It wasn’t even their first hour in, and already he was catching a fever?

The sound of Bucky dropping down their baggage shook Steve awake. He hadn’t even noticed Bucky going back out to collect their stuff, but he’d already placed everything on the kitchen floor and was putting their rations of food in the cupboards.

“How do you like it?” Bucky asked without turning around. Steve’s brain--- it hadn’t quite fall into daydream. But it had turned as slow as syrup, and it took him a moment to find an answer.

“It’s not what I was expecting.”

Not a ramshackle cabin and not an impersonal, glass-and-chrome monument like the Tower. Just a house, modest and quaint and perfectly ordinary. Bucky glanced back with a slight furrow between his eyebrows.

“But you like it?”

“Love it, Buck. ‘s real nice.”

Already, Steve felt good about their venture. He wasn’t naive enough to think he had come out of the Valkyrie unscated; and as much as he craved some time in solitude, he didn’t expect isolation to be the remedy for his strange mood. But there was wisdom in letting him acclimate to the new century somewhere where the century itself couldn’t actually touch him, somewhere where he could set his own pace of discovery and take a break when he needed. And with Bucky at his side, he knew he wouldn’t feel lost or overwhelmed by the immeasurable changes, swallowed by the nostalgia. For a while, they would just exist as the truest form of themselves, in a world of their own making: a dreamy bubble hanging suspended between the horrors of their old, old war, and the breath-stopping wonders of this new millennium.

For a while, they would just be _together._

It was more than Steve could’ve ever hoped for.

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  
  


The house didn’t need any repairs, no matter where Steve looked. And they had already put away their provisions, unpacked, disabled the bugs, hacked the cameras, hooked JARVIS in and secured the perimeter.

Twice.

But there was a shed with neatly stacked logs and a chopping block behind the house, so Bucky shooed Steve outside and ordered him to split enough firewood for the evening. He picked up the water kettle and sweetened the order with the promise of some strong coffee.

Steve vaulted outside with a grin, hunted around for an axe and set to work. It was a repetitive task, one Steve found that he honestly enjoyed, mind-numbing in the best of ways. Time and again the axe swung over his head, then slashed down, split the log apart all the way through, sent wood chips flying.

Steve chopped and chopped until his muscles lit with a pleasant ache; shirtless and shiny with sweat, he chopped, warmth spreading through him, chop, chop, chop, until the next time he blinked, Steve saw that the sun had dropped low on the horizon, and shadows were teeming at the edge of their backyard.

He dropped his aching arms, breathing in deep. The long hours in the sun had turned him pink all over, but Steve could feel his skin healing already, regenerating with each deep breath. He let the axe slip from his fingers and tilted his head to the sky, feeling the breeze cool the sweat on his aching muscles.

“That will last us a while.”

Steve glanced at the frankly alarming amount of logs laying scattered around him, then back towards the house. Bucky’s voice had come from the porch, and there he was: both elbows leaned lazily on the railing, looking at Steve with soft eyes. “Feel better now?”

Steve hummed in response. He wasn’t even surprised that Bucky had known he needed an outlet for his nervous energy.

“Where’s my coffee?” He groused playfully when he noticed the steaming cup cradled in Bucky’s palms.

The only answer he got was an arched eyebrow. Bucky took a pointed sip, biting his lip to contain a grin. Steve had a vision of himself running up to the porch, grabbing onto the railing with both arms and hauling himself up, holding on tight as he crowded against Bucky and got a taste of that coffee straight from the man’s mouth.

Nothing would come from that vision, vivid as it might be. Instead of doing all that, Steve collected his shirt from the ground and walked up to the porch. Once he reached it, Bucky offered him the cup with a wordless smile. He expected Steve to take it perhaps; but Steve simply cupped his hands around Bucky’s own, tilted the cup, and put his lips to the warm rim. He held Bucky’s eyes trapped as he took a long sip.

“It’s good coffee,” he said, and licked his lips. He didn’t imagine the way that Bucky’s pupils dilated and his breath shivered. But before Steve could do anything about it, his stomach gave a loud roar, which surprised a laugh out of Bucky.

The tension between them burst like a soap bubble, and Steve moved back a step. Sheepish, he rubbed the back of his reddening neck.

“I…”

“Skipped lunch and super soldier metabolism is a bitch, I know,” Bucky interrupted him, not unkindly. “Wanna go see what we could put together for dinner?”

“ _Please,_ ” Steve blurted, nearly whimpering at the idea of food. He hadn’t noticed just how famished he was.

Bucky took back his cup and lead the way back inside.

“There’s a service bathroom in the back, and a big one upstairs if you want to have a shower,” he told Steve.

“Are you implying that I smell?” Steve asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m _saying_ that you _reek_ , Captain Ragamuffin,” Bucky answered just a playfully. “Go wash the sweat off before you stink the whole place up.”

With a hearty laugh, Steve hopped towards the stairs, eager to wash off the stickiness. But not before giving Bucky a sudden, surprise hug, managing to rub his sweaty skin and cheek all over the magnificence that was a laughing, struggling, spluttering Bucky Barnes.

Upstairs, Steve took what was possibly the longest shower of his life. He luxuriated in the hot water, the perfect pressure, rubbing the scented soap into his hair and skin until he felt tender and pink all over again. He thought about shaving, but in the end he didn’t bother.

For dinner they fished out a few prepackaged dishes from the fridge, warmed them in the oven and took everything out back, where a swing stood facing the mountains. They ate in companionable silence, perhaps more quickly that would be allowed in polite company, and then sat watching the stars blooming overhead.

Very soon, the air turned crisp and humid, and night things began to peek out from the secret places, crawling across the leaves in search of sustenance. Steve and Bucky just huddled closer to ward off the chill and held their silence, content with just sharing their space.

Ever since he’d been given the serum, Steve ran hot like a furnace. If it were up to him, he’d brave the night out there, wait for the dawn in that swing, Bucky a solid weight against his side. But Bucky wasn’t as impervious to the cold, and always seeked to burrow into warmth, like a true cat. Steve struggled not to shiver as Bucky nuzzled closer and closer as the hours went by, until he was completely folded in his Captain’s arms, breathing warm and most in the crook of Steve’s neck.

It was… sweet, being there like this. In a way Steve had never imagined life would be. The two of them had always been tactile. During the War, they’d used to share that simple, casual sort of touching that held scores of promises within. That left Steve aching, every time. Living just a few days without Bucky had been its own form of torture, made Steve feel cold and starved for Bucky’s touch. Being back together, feeling the warmth of Bucky’s breath and the softness of his hair was like honey and like fire. Addictive. Steve didn’t think he could ever be without Bucky again.

“We really ought to talk, Steve,” Bucky mumbled, voice subdued by a strange sort of sadness.

“Do we?”

“Cultural buffer aside, it’s what I came here to _do_ , Steve. I need to tell you about the past, the present, the future. All of it.”

“Sounds like an awful lot.”

“It is. A lot. And some of it awful. But we gotta. And I know exactly the place to start.”

Steve wasn’t ashamed of the touch of whining that filtered in his voice.

“Aww, Bucky, do we really?”

Bucky patted his chest consolingly, leaning away a tiny little bit to look Steve in the eye. “‘fraid so, pal.”

“Aw, come on. It’s not going to be _that_ bad.”

Bucky hesitated, then went to his feet without a proper answer, trailing his left arm against Steve’s side as he went. Steve frowned a bit because cold as it might be outside, there was no reason for Bucky’s arm to feel so icy, like a chunk of marble.

“I’ll wait for you inside. Come when you are ready for that talk,” Bucky instructed once he was done stretching.

“I might be a while,” Steve replied, distracted. And then he called out: “Do something about that arm of yours,” making Bucky freeze and snap his head around. “It’s _freezing_. You just about gave me freezer burn even through our clothes. Did it fall asleep or something? Just, go take a hot shower maybe?. You’ll feel better afterwards.” Bucky’s pained expression melted a little at his concern, and a few minutes after he'd slipped inside, Steve truly heard the water turn on in the service bathroom.

No matter what he’d said, Steve found himself following Bucky inside not five minutes afterwards, feeling troubled for no apparent reason.

It’s strange how luck works, sometimes.

Steve came inside, and he hadn’t meant to tiptoe, had had no plan to surprise Bucky, he hadn’t even been thinking about Bucky wet from the shower, honest. All glorious skin decked with pearly droplets. If he had been thinking about anything at all, it was vague, jumbled thoughts about how he could help Bucky get warmer. About the thick blanket on the couch, and were there any wine and spices in their cupboards? to make mulled wine the way his mom had used to before… _before?_

But the bathroom door wasn’t completely close - and perhaps that had been Bucky wanting to make sure he heard it, if Steve called from outside - and there was a mirror above the sink, and Bucky was standing motionless before it, head hanging like a man condemned, clutching his left shoulder almost as if in agony, unnaturally still amidst the wisps of vapour. His reflection in the mirror burned bright like a fevered vision. The light in the bathroom was off, and starlight spilled like water over the peaks and valleys of that vision’s bare chest, painted soft blue shadows in the ridges of its abdomen, under the curve of its pectorals, making the pebbled nipples stand out like turgid buds. Bucky was beautiful, and as still as the dead.

Feeling the sense of foreboding mount, Steve took a step closer, mouth open to call out but--

\--but then he _saw it_.

On the soft curve where Bucky’s neck and shoulder met, a cluster of scars stemmed like the roots of a malignant plant, each root twisting deep and burning a violent red. And then there---

\---right _there_ \---

\----where the scars ended…

A deep, inflamed gorge. A seal, like something soldered on. And then, the _metal_ began.

Steve gave a wordless cry of despair and next thing he knew, he was rushing inside and grabbing Bucky, forcing him around, but Bucky wrenched himself away like a wild thing, tucked his body smaller than seemed possible in the dark cold space between the sink and the wall. When he looked at Steve, his eyes were huge and lambent in the pale oval of his face. He was still cradling his shoulder as if he was thinking to rip his arm clean off, and hiding it behind his back.

 _“It’s a prosthetic?”_ Steve asked, looking furious but also like he was on the verge of tears. It made Bucky helpless not to answer.

“It… it is,” he croaked out, voice rough.

The sudden film of tears in Steve’s eyes burned like acid. In a voice far too sharp, he asked: “ _The train?_ ” but why did he, when he already knew the answer?

Haltingly, with something akin to fear pounding at his temples, Bucky nodded. Steve’s brain whited out, a deafening ringing mounting in his ears, a roar like the whipping of a cold winter wind, like an avalanche, like a blast, like a train clanging and whistling on rusty trails.

“Let me see. I need to see,” he heard himself say in a voice that wasn’t his own.

“Steve.”

“I _need_ to see.”

“You don’t want to.”

“I need to.”

“You…”

“ _Let me see._ ”

He wanted to pull Bucky to his chest. In his mind, he had already reached out, yanked Bucky from the shadows, forced his clawed hand off his shoulder and placed his cheek to Bucky’s heart, his lips on whatever scar he might find. In truth, he was paralysed.

It sickened Bucky to watch the fury morph into sadness and then guilt on Steve’s too-open face. He murmured: “You weren’t meant to find out like this,” and took an hesitant step forward, then another, and another still, until Steve could put his fingertips to the scars. Bucky’s cheeks had gone the colour of old bones. His eyes looked huge, pooling all the light from the room like a cat’s. His skin felt icy, and goosebumps were raising in waves under Steve’s touch.

Before he knew what he was doing, Steve had let his hand drop and was touching his lips to the scarred flesh, feeling every twisted ridge, every etched line with his mouth; and then he was dragging his lips down, down the metal, thinking: _he can’t feel this_ , _he can’t feel me_ , and _it’s all my fault, all my fault, all my fault_.

He kissed down every inch of that arm, a punishment and a benediction, traced each plate with the softness of his lips, warmed it up with his shaky breath, until he became suddenly aware that he was tasting the salt of his own tears upon his tongue, and that Bucky was carding the fingers of his flesh hand through Steve’s hair, both holding and soothing him. He was pressing hard, close-mouthed kisses to Steve’s forehead like he wanted to prove something. His voice was a litany of “Not your fault. Not your fault. Not your fault.”

And as much as Steve loved him, for a single, violent moment he rebelled to the feeling, called Bucky liar in his own mind and hated him a bit, hated that he’d try to comfort Steve instead of punishing him. Hated to be loved, in that single moment of madness, by a forgiving creature.

But then the moment was over, and he went back to hating himself only, hating himself like he’d done since the train, since the fall. Like always, like ever, his heart was bursting with love for Bucky. But Steve refused to listen to him, refused to stop either kissing or crying, or even to forgive himself.

It was a long night for them both.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Handy forties-lingo dictionary:**  
>  ****  
>  **Rag-a-muffin** \- a dirty or disheveled individual


	8. Chapter 8 - It's up to you (And it's up to me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first days at the cabin are, at the same time, incredibly lovely and hard to adjust to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost didn't manage to make the weekly update! I'm so happy I did! It's an extra-long chapter too. I hope you'll like this one! :D

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 8:** It's up to you (And it's up to me)

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:**  Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 3673.

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warnings:** Not a warning per se, but I talk about PTSD in this chapter, and like Bucky says: I am nowhere near qualified to talk about such a huge, important topic. I did my research, and what little Bucky says was in the articles I read. Acceptance, self-care and seeking help from a loved one are an important starting point for sure, but that’s it: a starting point. There’s nothing more the boys can do from their cabin in the woods, but seeking professional help is the next step, and it’s never -ever- something to feel ashamed of, or guilty about.

 **Summary:** The first days at the cabin are, at the same time, incredibly lovely and hard to adjust to.

 

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 **D** uring their first week at the cottage, Bucky went quiet and subdued. He gave Steve a wide berth, letting him adjust to the reveal in his own terms. The longest conversations they had were about food, and when they eventually broached the subject of the arm, the only thing Steve focused on was how it hadn’t looked like _that_ before - silver plates interlocking and shifting in an imitation of human musculature, jarring but objectively _beautiful_ \- and it never did again, after that night.

Skittish, Bucky murmured something about wearing a synthskin sleeve: a high-tech glove that made the arm look like real flesh. There was a defiant purse to his lips, when he explained this; but the tightness around his eyes spoke of doubt. Of shame. With determined tenderness, Steve put his palm to Bucky’s palm, rubbed their fingertips together, slow and soft.

And ordered the sleeve off.

Bucky seemed about to protest, but then slumped in defeat. With his eyes closed, he looked for a moment like he was listening to a distant tune, concentrating to catch it. Slowly at first, then with mounting speed, his fingers moved in a complicated pattern, touching his palm in sequence. Lastly, he rolled his wrist sharply, as if he were turning a key into a lock.

Light rippled across his skin and then Bucky turned violently away, something he managed to do only because Steve was still unprepared for his otherworldly speed. When Bucky turned back towards Steve, he was cradling his arm close to his chest, and his skin looked like metal again.

Steve was, in many ways, naive and a self-proclaimed idiot. However, he had always been an expert in all things Bucky. He _knew_ that the other man wouldn’t have bothered wearing the sleeve if it wasn’t for Steve. Knew that he’d felt comfortable with his body and its addition - ghastly as it might be - until Steve had entered the equation, making Bucky suddenly afraid to _disappoint._

 _I love you, you idiot,_ Steve wanted to scream at him, and then murmur at him, cradling him close, and then sob at at him as he painted his bare skin with tears and with bites and with kisses, leaning over him, covering him and pushing into him, but -- he wasn’t quite sure they were ready for _that,_ yet.

So he just determinedly put his lips to Bucky’s metal palm, holding his eyes like a challenge until he was done tracing the ridges down to the tapered fingers.

Bucky skittered off after that, eyes cast down and pensive; but he stopped wearing the sleeve.

So.

Mission accomplished.

When a few mornings afterwards Bucky looked him in the eye and truly _smiled_ again, Steve performed the closest approximation of a wagging golden retriever a man could ever hope to achieve.

“There’s more about me,” Bucky warned. “Things that you’ll hate, but that you need to---” But Steve silenced him.

“We have time,” he assured, and didn’t miss the relief that came to Bucky’s eyes.

“It’s bad things, Steve,” Bucky warned again, reluctant but earnest. “You might not look at me the same. You might not--”

“ _We have time,_ ” he repeated in a voice that wouldn’t be denied. Bucky sagged visibly, and for the first time of many told Steve: “As you wish,” murmuring the words in such a way that it made Steve tingle and feel confused: like they held a secret, soft and warm and entirely too precious.

They focused on other things after that: historical events, the evolution of social norms and the likes. Bucky told Steve to ask everything he wanted to ask in no particular order, focusing on the things that mattered the most to him. After pondering the offer for a minute Steve decided:

“Just sum it up for me, and go in order. What happened after the War?” And then, as if struck by lightning: “We _won it_ , right?”

Bucky wriggled his nose.

“Of course we won, a certain idiot who won’t be named here gave his life to make sure we won,” he said lightly, but there was an agony in his eyes that Steve could completely relate to. He felt the urge to kiss Bucky, and for once he followed it. He grabbed both of Bucky’s hands and pressed kisses to his knuckles and up to his wrist, going up and up until their lips met, and silence dropped like a curtain around them.

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **F** or the sake of truth, it must be noted that Steve, true to his nature, couldn’t resist dropping some questions here and there, leading them down a few rabbit holes he hadn’t been expecting.

Hearing that the Dodgers had long left Brooklyn had been a stab to the heart. The two of them groused about it for _days,_ sullen like kids who had gotten their candy stolen.

Steve asked about the Howlies, most of them dead but never forgotten. He asked about Peggy, confined in a care home. About Howard, who used to be the greatest inventor of all and had accomplished so much, but was now old and cold and remote like a king, unapproachable in his faraway castle.

He asked about Schmidt and Zola and the Cube, and was told that the monsters were both dead and their mysterious source of power being studied. He asked about Bucky’s preternatural youth, and was told that Zola had given him a serum the likes of Steve’s. He asked about the arm, and was told about a Russian surgeon, a clever spy in disguise, and a greedy general who collected trophies. He stopped Bucky before he could delve in too deeply into his own backstory. Reading the resignation in his gaze, Steve knew that Bucky expected to be beaten down and shooed away like an old dog once he’d revealed his past.

So Steve refused to let him speak.

Which might made him selfish, or naive, but there was a thought stuck in his head like a record on the turntable, a sort of revelation: that he wanted _this_ \- wanted Bucky, next to him, warm under his fingertips, sweet under his tongue, happy and safe - _for the rest of their lives._

Was it really that strange then, that he wouldn’t let anything threaten that glass-fragile equilibrium they had reached?

He expertly piloted the conversation away from Bucky’s past, and flung out volleys of questions as distraction.

When they broached the subject, Steve went on an angry tirade on the _ignominy_ of paying women less than one would pay a man in the same position, regardless of their qualifications; and what did Bucky mean, “police violence” and “raising sexual assault rates” and “racist crimes”? This was the future for fuck’s sake, where was the equality? The justice? _The decency??_

Music was good thought, even if some of it made him cringe and most made him melancholy for some reason. And the advances in the medical field. Those were marvellous. Steve had to compose himself when he heard that many of his old maladies where now curable. When he heard that the tuberculosis that had stolen his mom away was curable and preventable, too.

Modern art puzzled him - a purple dot on an otherwise empty canvas had nothing on the masters, on the way Caravaggio etched beauty out from the blackest shadows, or Leyendecker hatched folds with his gleaming oils, or Norman Rockwell infused his work with humor and familial feelings. N. O. T. H. I. N. G. and no, I’m not _pouting_ , Buck. Grown men do not _pout,_ Tony Stark notwithstanding _._

When it came to modern food, they made use of the premade meals packed in their fridge to introduce Steve to the traditional cuisine of different countries. Steve had several epiphanies in the course of a few days, even though Bucky swore up and down and sideways that those dishes were even more mind blowing when freshly made.

All good things come to a end, though. It is the way of life.

So it was inevitable that one day they opened the icer, and found that there were no more premade meals to be found.

Steve and Bucky shared a look of… we could call it horror and not be too far off the mark.

It looked like it was time.

_Time to prepare dinner from scratch._

Sadly, neither one was a particularly proficient cook. Steve had a propensity for boiling _everything_. And if what came out of the process was chewable then it was _food_ , taste be damned. Bucky fared a tiny little bit better, and knew enough about spices to make food at least palatable. But anything too fancy made him bored before even trying.

They decided that making food was a mission requiring both their expertise, but on their first try they ended up covered in flour and cracked eggs shells, shrieking like children as they ducked projectiles of food. It took three hours to clean and put everything back to the way it was.

They tried online recipes after that. They weren’t supposed to have contact with the outside world. But Tony was never one for rules, so he’d given them JARVIS, and with him, full access to the internet.

Religiously following the video instructions, they picked a couple steaks and seasoned them, then made a colourful salad with the fresh produce they’d asked JARVIS to deliver. They also put a pot of water to boil, and then stood peering at the pasta fluttering around in the bubbles until the timer rang. They scrambled to strain the pasta, managed to do it without accident, and then poured a simple butter sauce on it.

They ate by candlelight, the storm outside making music against the window panes.

It was a nice dinner.

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **N** ightmares didn’t come for Steve the first night, nor the first week. They laid in wait, biding their time until the cottage felt like home to Steve, and Bucky not like a figment of his imagination anymore. They waited, and when they finally assaulted him, it was horrifying.

Steve wished he could say he didn’t remember the visions he’d been shown in his terror, but he did. He remembered every jumble of images, the tangle of feelings, and it had all been there: his mom, the Valkyrie, Peggy, the factory in Kreischberg going up in flames, the freight train clattering above the gorge, his shield cutting through the air, Bucky’s metal arm, the operating table in Azzano. The towering skyscrapers of modern New York twisted like decaying plants, grotesque and dripping. The roaring dragon of Steve’s wrath chewing on someone’s bones. A teardrop turning into a flood that washed away his old home. All the Howlies running from a fire, bombs falling on a ruined battlefield. A wraith-like widow floating across a snowy plain, a bone-chilling wail issuing from behind the black veil, and her face was Steve’s. It cut him to even think back about it.

In the secret of the night, Steve let Bucky rock him, peering at the path of destruction he’d swathed through the house. His room was in shambles, the blankets ripped, the bedside table upturned, the lamp in pieces on the floor, smashed beyond repair. They were kneeling in the living room, and from there he could see his bloody footprints on the stairs, a hole in the wall left by his fist. Books were scattered everywhere, the curtains were ripped and the couch was upside down, the bare wooden bones of it exposed like a carcass.

“Maybe,” he croaked, voice diminished with hurt, “maybe they were right in wanting to lock me where I can’t hurt anyone. I’m dangerous.”

“Steve. Steve, look at me. _Look at me._ You haven’t hurt anyone. You haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. This kind of damage can be repaired. You’re with me and you’re safe. We’re both safe. I’ve got you.”

“I’m dangerous,” Steve repeated, and wondered distantly if his face would come away now, like a mask; and reveal an horrifying truth beneath.

“Hey, no, no,” Bucky ordered, pulling Steve around by the shoulders so he was forced to look him in the eye. “Don’t say that. Don’t _ever_ say that. You’re nothing like Schmidt. You’re my Steve. You’re the best man I’ve ever known, and you’re a hero.”

Oddly, it wasn’t the thought of being a hero, or even a good man, that started to thaw the ice banded around Steve’s chest: it was the soft, determined “My Steve” that Bucky had slipped in there like it was nothing.

“If you hadn’t come with me--”

“I would’ve gotten to you anyway. Even if we were in the Tower, or in the middle of Brooklyn, I would’ve come for you. I always will. You know that, right?”

“You can’t promise that,” Steve said, so flatly, so blankly, that Bucky blanched for a moment. But then stubborn determination suffused his face.

“No, you’re right. I can’t promise that. No one could. But I can promise to always try, Steve. And I will. For as long as you’ll allow me.”

Something warm stirred inside Steve’s chest, like a flower budding through snow. But he turned his face away, pressed it deep into the meat of his shoulder, wanting to hide. He was barely aware of it, but he felt Bucky move away and when he returned, he had a basin and a warm wet cloth that he used to gently wipe the sweat off Steve’s neck and his arms, the blood coating his feet and each of his knuckles.

It was strange how Steve didn’t want to be touched, but at the same time desired nothing more. Every gentle, reverent brush of the cloth across his skin made Steve feel more undeserving. But he ached so keenly for Bucky that his skin drank in that touch, drank and drank and _drank_ until, hours later, his shoulders began to unwind, the rigid curve of his spine loosened, and he fell back against Bucky’s chest in a boneless sprawl, exhausted as if he’d fought a whole war by himself.

“I got you,” Bucky promised, as the light of dawn rippled through the cracked window and encased them in its hold. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

“Don’t let me go,” Steve heard himself say, sluggish with exhaustion and already dropping into sleep.

“As you wish,” Bucky promised, and then darkness came and swept Steve under.

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **T** he sleek laptop that Tony had slipped into their bags had been pulled out and placed on the kitchen counter, where the light was best. Steve stood at parade rest in front of it, giving a full report on the damage he’d caused, and dutifully apologizing every five to seven words.

From inside the screen, Tony blinked like a man who’d been blinded by a flash. Helpless, he glanced behind Steve’s rigid shoulders at the destroyed living room. Bucky sat cross legged on the upturned skeleton of the couch, biting into an apple and looking mightily unconcerned.

“He knew I was joking right? When I said he had to beg forgiveness if he broke something?” Tony asked, bewildered, over Steve’s ongoing list of repairs he was swearing to do. Bucky must’ve made a goofy, besotted expression of some sort, because Tony’s own face went distinctly “ewwwwww”.

“That’s Steve for you. He wanted to apologize to your face, and I couldn’t have stopped him if I tried,” Bucky, sinking his teeth into the crunching apple. Sticky juice sprang from the fruit and flooded his mouth, coating his bottom lip. He wiped it away with a flick of his tongue.

“BUT I FEEL LIKE THE BAD GUY, NOW!” Tony wailed. “What kind of jerk honestly expects a veteran to apologize for one of his episodes? Even I get away scott free if I get an episode! If anything, I expect you to give me hugs and candy and fuzzy blankets and everything nice after I have an episode! It’s common decency!”

Steve’s voice cut off abruptly.

“Episodes?” he asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Aaaand,” Bucky announced, raising from the couch in a beautifully feline stretch, “here’s the cue I was waiting for.”

The miniature Tony in the screen startled, then affected a scowl.

“What? _Not fair!_ I’m _not_ giving the Capsicle the PTSD talk. I never signed up for that!”

“No, but I can do it now that you got him hooked.” Bucky threw the apple core with unerring aim and caught the trashcan all across both rooms. “Thanks Tony.” He sauntered closer, slowly pushing the laptop closer with a decisive hand. Tony twisted like a pretzel, trying try to keep looking at Bucky’s face up to the last moment. “You only love me for my genius!” he accused cheerfully just before the laptop clicked shut.

“What is PTSD?” Steve asked, definitely not looking at how wet and inviting Bucky’s mouth looked.

“How much do you know about shell shock, Steve?” Bucky asked instead of answering, looking like he wanted to reach out but was biting down the urge.

Steve knew about shell shock. Knew enough to be able to list some of the symptoms, at least. Anxiety. Negativity. Isolation. Depression. Mood swings. Insomnia. Apathy. Nightmares.

“I don’t have it,” he said curtly, turning from Bucky as if the matter was closed.

“I do,” Bucky admitted, easy as anything. Steve swung back towards him, stunned. “Or at least I did, when I came in from the cold. I’m much better these days, but it’s been decades for me. Tony has it, too. It’s a wonder Pepper and Clint don’t suffer from it, and Natalia is on a tight edge.”

“I don’t know these people,” Steve said, the taint of annoyance in his voice. He didn’t--he _didn’t_ begrudge Bucky his life. He’d _never_. He was grateful that Bucky was alive; grateful beyond words. But the causal remarks to these amazing people he loved so much… they _cut,_ somehow. Made him wonder if he was still enough, after all these years. Still worth it. That, and he was feeling defensive, cornered and exhausted after the night he’d had.

Bucky raised his hands placatingly.

“You will,” he promised, “if you want to. What I’m trying to say is that many people suffer from PTSD - that’s the modern term for shell shock. And there’s no shame or guilt in it. PTSD is the result of a terrible trauma, and having a reaction to that trauma is only human. But dealing with it can be ugly, painfully lonely and frustrating. And you can’t start healing unless you take stock of yourself and decide that _there is_ something you want healed. That’s all I ask you - to think about it for a moment. Think about yourself, what you need.”

“And then what?” Steve barked out, not quite angry, but dubious. Feeling anxiety raise like a tidal wave inside his chest, his throat, drowning him.

“Then we start giving you what you need. We make sure that you feel safe and at peace here. We find out what triggers you, and how to deal with it. We make sure you catch a breath. Losing some of that weight you’re carrying and give those shoulders a rest wouldn’t be that bad, would it now? We can try to meditate if you want. Or find something to do together, like sparring. Going for a run in the woods or for a swim down at the creek. We could waste away our days reading. Cooking. Listening to our old music, or discovering new songs from this century. Just living in the moment. Building up memories. Anything you want. And if there’s something - _anything_ \- you want to open up about… I’ll always be here to listen. I am nowhere near qualified, but I think you can make do with me until you’re ready for someone better.”

Steve couldn’t quite parse how that made him feel. What Bucky was asking of him seemed… incredibly hard in a sense, for someone who wasn’t used to allow himself even the most basic necessities. His skinnier, pissier self would’ve bristled like a cat, unwilling to waste so much time on himself, jittery at the idea of being lazy - of _indulging! -_ when he could be making himself useful. He’d be furious, and spit in the face of anyone who’d try to mollycoddle him.

But on the other hand, sharing such simplistic, domestic pleasures with Bucky of all people? Leaning into him for support, and getting to hold him in return, setting on the road of life together like two halves of a whole? It sounded feasible, if only for as long as he’d stand to treat himself to nice things; and also like the closest thing to bliss he could achieve on this Earth.

Steve felt some of the tension seep from his bones, and:

“You say that like you aren’t everything I’ve ever needed Buck,” he revealed on the gust of a long exhale.

He was treated with the rare sight of Bucky Barnes caught off guard. Shocked, Bucky breathed in sharply, eyes widening in increments in the beautiful oval of his face. He stilled like that, brimming with the surprised pleasure of Steve’s sudden confession, and then broke into a smile that was like sun bursting through clouds.

How completely he adored this man, Steve thought. How lucky was he to have found him again.

Smiling, he held out one hand, asked: “Will you help me with this mess, Buck?” gesturing to the destroyed room sure, but meaning so much more.

So much more.

And Bucky breathed in deep, smiling still in that tremulous way. Took Steve’s hand in both his own and said with emotion:

_“As you wish.”_

  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**


	9. Chapter 9 - We're able to be just you and me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the beginning, reaching out and opening up… it wasn’t easy.  
> Steve wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself; but he was afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooo, yeah, Bucky was pulling a Wesley last couple of chapters, and now he refuses to let Steve know about Princess Bride xD

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 9:** We're able to be just you and me

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 2525

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warning:** none.

 **Summary:** At the beginning, reaching out and opening up… it wasn’t easy.

Steve wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself; but he was afraid

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**A** t the beginning, reaching out and opening up… it wasn’t easy.

Steve wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself; but he was afraid.

Afraid to air out his doubts. Afraid to admit his guilt, or even to let go of its pinning weight. Afraid to be absolved again. Afraid to be found wanting.

Deep down in a secret part of himself, the thing that scared him the most was asking Bucky: “remember when…?”, and have to watch his blue eyes cloud over with confusion. Watch him struggle, unable to recognize something that was as fresh as newly picked roses to Steve, but that held no value for the man Bucky had grown into through the decades.

Steve held his tongue, bit through it for days, walling the words in. Not realizing that they were bubbling like lava.

When he finally blurted up the first of such recollections, he froze in fright. But rather than cloud over, Bucky’s eyes lit up beautifully. For every memory he was told, he engaged Steve with two of his own, adding details the Steve couldn’t have known, until the tapestry of his memory was ablaze with new colours.

Words came easier after that. They talked. Talked as they cooked, with a teasing edge to their words; talked as they ran through the forest, as they sparred, as they moved through those complicated katas that Bucky liked to practice. Talked as they picked up branches for the fireplace and berries and nuts to ease their hunger; talked as they put away the dishes, as they lay curled under a blanket on the couch, painfully honest.

They even talked, sometimes, when Steve woke up from a nightmare and dragged himself to Bucky’s bed, tugging until they were spooning, seeking the warmth of his embrace. The smell of him, the softness of his skin, the scratch of his bristling cheek, even the hard metal of his arm - the concrete reality of his body brought Steve such an exquisite comfort, he couldn’t bear not to burrow into it with all his senses.

After losing Bucky and then finding him again in such a miraculous way, Steve was completely unashamed of how much he wanted - needed - Bucky close, warm under his fingers, safe and whole. And yet it still surprised him sometimes, when Bucky turned out to be just as needy; when he reached out in the dark, pulling Steve to his chest, gazing at him with intense, adoring eyes, mapping all the planes and slopes of his face with the tips of his fingers, as if he were trying to burn it all into his memory.

Daylight didn’t chase the need away; not often anyway, and never completely.

Their isolated cottage granted them privacy, and a freedom to reach out and touch they couldn’t have allowed themselves in their time. And so they touched, letting their fingers brush together as they moved, squeezing a shoulder in comfort, cupping the other’s chin, pushing along his bottom lip, carding through his hair, but also kissing, _kissing_.

It was sweet, being so in love.

Now, if they could only _say the words_.

But they were dumb with love, the both of them; and clever in all the wrong ways. So they found all imaginable ways to say it, with eyes and mouths and actions and fingers, without _actually_ saying it.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**D** ays turned into weeks turned into months.

Their time together was a precious thing, a never ending wheel that brought them up and then down, up and then down, in a rollercoaster of emotions that they braved united as one.

They laughed, they cried, they fought, they touched, they discovered, they spoke.

Slowly, their intimacy sweetened, ripening like a fruit. Nurtured, the bond that tied them together grew stronger, banded ropes of gold around their souls, intricate and beautiful like lace. It took time. It took trust. It took love, which bleed from their every interaction, even if the words themselves never left their lips.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**T** hey patrolled the woods, at first. Twice a day for the first week or two, then once a day, then every other day, the urge to be on guard petering down until, slowly, their walks went from patrolling to just… walking. Holding hands when they could, enjoying that muted symphony of the woods we call silence. But just as often they’d tease and poke and push each other along the way, until one had to duck a mock-punch and run away with a laugh while the other gave chase.

Steve took to cutting logs for an hour or two every evening. Even he was honest enough to admit that nobody could need that much firewood. But the repetitive motions worked like a spell on him, pulling him into a place where he could no longer hear the voices needling him, could no longer replay the way water had punched through the metal and glass of the Valkyrie and swallowed him whole, like a hungry beast. The way he’d let Bucky fall, they way he’d watched him disappear into the whiteness, straining towards him but unable to let go and follow, something in him freezing him to the spot, forced to look until his eyes had burned and his lungs had ached.

When he emerged from his trance, sweaty and achy but feeling cleansed, Bucky would be there, sitting on the porch, waiting for him with infinite sniper patience. He’d pull a chilled beer or a carafe of iced tea from seemingly nowhere, and they’d sit watching the sunset, their feet tangled up together.

Once Steve had cleared a sizeable patch of their backyard, JARVIS surreptitiously suggested to use it to plant herbs and vegetables. Bucky seemed thrilled at the prospect, and even Steve felt something inside him settle at the thought of caring for something, nourishing it and watching it grow.

However, the freshly turned soil, rich and moist and crawling with insects, along with the seeds they sprinkled around in fistfuls, ended up attracting several birds and even a few squirrels. Steve didn’t quite go heart-eyed over the animals, but he was delighted with their presence, so the little garden idea was pushed aside in favour of squirrel-watching and bird-feeding. He stopped wasting his afternoons on wood-cutting, and started building little trees houses, ornate stands and feeders, going through a lot of planning and trial and error phases.

After supper, and whenever the weather was too wet or cold to go outside, Steve and Bucky would curl up in front of the fireplace with a book and a cup of something hot.

Their collection wasn’t small, the books crammed in three rows on several shelves, and there was a lot of variety: fiction, history, science, engineering, poetry, romance. However, there was a book tucked amongst the rest, well-thumbed and yellowing with care, that was seemingly off-limits. Its title was “The Princess Bride” and the first time Steve curiously picked it up, Bucky all but dived to snatch it from his hands, flustered for no apparent reason.

The rest of the books were fair game though, and they took turns reading aloud to each other, exploring faraway planets, living fantastical adventures, witnessing the depths of feelings that went beyond imagination.

The first few times they reached a scene with a love declaration, a kiss or an embrace, they would peek at one another out of the corner of their eyes and share small, secret smiles.

As time went on they became bolder, holding each other’s eyes as they enunciated soft words of promise, of devotion, of passion. The future was bolder, less prone to shame, and Steve wondered if they would ever pick up a seemingly harmless book and run smack into a sex scene. He could almost hear Bucky’s voice go rough and breathy as he narrated about bold touching, breathless kisses, the desperate chase after that bright explosion, the feeling of complexion, sweaty skin sliding against sweaty skin, so hot to the touch, the wet noises, the sweet glide, fingers tangling together as two mouths chased each other, sharing breath…

Steve wasn’t quite sure if he was waiting breathlessly for such a thing to happen, or dreading it. Daydreaming about the possibility was nice enough, and he liked to indulge into the fantasy sometimes, especially when he had paper and pencil nearby.

A couple weeks in their cottage, he’d picked up sketching again. The impulse had taken him one morning: glancing out the window he’d seen golden sunlight spill through the canopy of leaves, tattooing shifting lakes of light on the grassy ground. Entranced, he’d rushed for the notepad they kept on the fridge, almost upturned a drawer in his quest for a pencil, and set to work.

The only problem with his sketching was that he let his mind wander. That first time, once he was done sketching a lovely rendition of their woods he’d filled pages with nothing but Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, _Bucky_. The curve of his smile, the dimple in his cheek, the soft shadow of his collarbone, the long stretch of his neck, dark curls teasing feather-like against the bare skin… Steve didn’t become aware of what was happening until he’d turned the last page of the notebook and realised he had nothing else to draw on.

His reborn passion for art needed supplies to be sustained. So, Bucky teased and cajoled until Steve grudgingly agreed that they _could_ start going shopping into the nearby town.

SHIELD hadn’t meant for Steve to ever leave the preserve, which wasn’t just empty and isolated but also completely fenced in, with only a service door on the south side. The fence itself was electric and had sensors and cameras that SHIELD controlled remotely, while the door was equipped with both a keypad and a thumbpad. The only other way to reach or leave the premise was with a jet.

Unless you had JARVIS on your side.

And Steve and Bucky _did_ have JARVIS on their side.

When they started going into town, JARVIS simply uploaded a pre-registered loop to the camera feed and closed the door after them with a quiet click.

Their excursions were sporadic and brief. Steve clung stubbornly to their isolation, and even if he absolutely _loved_ it when someone referred to them as each other’s (“Your boy is such a looker”, the produce lady always told Steve with a dreamy sigh. And the beekeeper usually ribbed Bucky to buy “honey for his honey”, cackling madly when Steve unfailingly blushed at his teasing), all the attention made him feel skittery and like he’d been dropped behind enemy lines.

They usually hiked down in the early hours of the morning, when everything around them was hazy and grey and still, and beautiful enough to take the breath away. They slipped into a small diner for breakfast (charmingly named “Pop’s”), and then dipped briefly into this or that store to get sketchbooks and an array of pencils, erasers and sharpeners, but also fresh produce and slabs of meat, fish, cakes, matches, an oil lamp, cups, new curtains, a soft afghan for their ruined couch, and all sorts of books for their growing collection.

Mostly, Steve shied away from company. His artist eye became enamoured with the town itself, the architecture, the flaking storefronts, the drowsy roads, the green edges, the vintage automobiles crowding the street, that looked as alien and fabulous to him as if they had jumped straight out of one of those scientific dime novels from his childhood.

The people, he watched from afar. The parchment-like skin of the farmers, rough and browned by the sun. The purple bags under a waitress’s eyes. The delicate way a young mum held her baby to her chest. An old man cradling a fallen bird in his cupped palms. A girl with frayed jeans perched on top of an unsteady ladder and pruning a gnarled tree. A kid rolling down the streets on a skateboard, knees scabbed and a fat orange cat hoisted in his skinny arms. All this made its way onto his sketchbook. But somehow, engaging the people was beyond him.

“You’ll get there,” Bucky promised.

Steve hummed distractedly. They were sitting at a secluded table at Pop’s, and he had been busy reproducing the portly, round-faced cook and his welcoming mannerism on paper for the last hour or so.

“Or you won’t,” Bucky added.

“Uh?” Steve looked up. There was a bit of a dazed look in his eyes, like he was having trouble emerging from his art.

Bucky patted his hand fondly, then went back to his coffee.

“If you’re an introvert at heart then you’re an introvert. There’s nothing wrong with that. I remember how you were: you liked a precious few, and got skittish when lots of people clamored for your attention. And it’s okay. _Don’t ever let anybody tell you it’s not okay._ But you can’t discover this new world only through books. Every thing you’ll read or be told... yes even _by me,_ Steve - is gonna be skewed by someone else’s perception. I think you ought to give yourself the chance to experience the future for yourself. And interacting with people is a place to start. Does that sound like an okay plan?”

Steve shrugged. It wasn’t bad, in theory. Like Bucky had said, Steve had never been a terribly social person. Privately, he thought that he’d be fine having contact with no one else but Bucky for the rest of his life.

The rest of forever sounded good, too.

But he was aware of himself enough to realise that this sudden aversion to everything human-shaped wasn’t one of his natural traits. He thought back to Peggy and the Howlies; and the distant ache that came with their memory said that he might not be ready yet, but he could want that kind companionship with enough time.

Steve tuned back to his art, added some more depth to his sketch and then turned the page. It was blank and begging to be filled; and Steve wanted so, so much to draw Bucky again…

He glanced up, and something must’ve showed on his face, because Bucky slouched in his seat, head tilted back and legs spread, looking for all the world like temptation personified, and drawled:

“Draw me like one of your French girls, Jack,” whatever _that_ might mean.

Steve didn’t waste the opportunity, and scrambled to fill a page… or… several… with nothing but Bucky. By the time he came up for air, his stomach was rumbling a loud warning. Bucky flagged the waitress, ordered a two-digits number of sandwiches, assorted brownies and muffins, plus four bottles of soda to go.

The hikes back always felt longer than in the mornings, what with the sun beating down the nape of their neck and their purchases hanging awkwardly on their arms. But every step closer to the cottage always made Steve feel lighter, made his mood turn sunnier.

 _If time could stop…_ he thought.

So naturally, that was when reality came crashing into their bubble, and time speeded up into a craze.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**


	10. Chapter 10 - You were made to be mine (higher-rated scene within. Please read notes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys play a game of hide and seek, and it ends in an unexpected way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It... wasn't quite supposed to happen, but the boys have sex in this chapter. It's NOT graphic, but it's there in all its sappy glory.

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 10:** You were made to be mine

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

**Chapter Word Count:**

**Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** Oh, a full round R for THIS ONE.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warning:** Sex scene ahead!! Nothing graphic or explicit about it, but it’s there~.

**Summary:**

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**S** teve loved running through the forest, especially in that magical pre-dawn time when the world was sleepy and hazy.

The rhythmic pounding of his feet on the grassy ground, the sun on his upturned face, the chilly air inflating his lungs. It made him feel alive, centered. It emptied his mind and filled his muscles with the most pleasurable ache.

Bucky couldn’t always be bothered to roll out of bed at Too Damn Early O’Clock in the morning to run with him. When Steve came back from his run all sweaty and aglow with satisfaction, he usually found Bucky practicing katas behind the house. Or doing those ridiculous upside down push-ups.

One handed.

Wearing sweatpants and a fine sheen of sweat.

_And nothing else._

Steve _still_ maintains that the steps leading to the backyard were faulty and in need of repair. That’s why he stumbled on them so very often. Cross on his heart.

Sometimes, Bucky stayed behind only to slink out of the thick shrubbery like a preying wolf halfway through Steve’s run, giving him a heart attack every. Single. _Time._ He’d smirk with all his teeth on display and start a game of chase.

Some particular mornings though, Bucky went to expeditions of his own. Steve never asked where he went, and Bucky never volunteered the information. But when he strolled back out of the woods, his hair was dark and heavy with moisture.

Privately, Steve turned those days into a game of cat and mouse. He sniffed around the woods, hunting for a lake where Bucky may go swimming. It might sound nice on the surface; a way to surprise his… his whatever Bucky was to him. Was “soulmate” a proper monicker? Some may consider it pretentious, but how could it be, when it was so accurate? When the universe had aligned so bizarrely and so perfectly to allow them a chance to be together?

Deep down though, he mostly wanted to get the drop on Bucky, and scare the living daylights out of him the way he’d been scared one too many times during his morning runs. Perhaps it was a mean goal to have. But it was also the kind of prank that Steve-before-the-Ice might’ve pulled on the Howlies. So Steve took it as a sign of recovery and didn’t allow himself to feel too guilty about his intentions.

The day his meandering brought Steve within hearing distance of a creek, he broke into a grin so wide, his cheeks literally _hurt_. He hopped from one rock to another up a steep switchback, using his hands to scramble up the last few meters up a rocky hill, to where a few large rocks clustered together.

He peered between their massive bodies, and saw a small waterfall tumbling down the other side of the hill, modest in height but quietly beautiful. Its water fed into a wide, round poll. Sunlight bounced along the rippling surface, ignited a rainbow of fairy lights in the ever-shifting spray. White boulders festooned with dark green moss emerged from the clear water further away, reaching up to the sky like the fingers of a splayed hand.

 _Gotcha!_ Steve thought, when he got the first glimpse of Bucky’s wet head and gleaming arm behind one of those boulders.

From where he stood, there wasn’t a clear path leading down to the water’s edge. But Steve managed to reach the shoreline just fine with a bit of ingenuity, slipping only a handful of times. He crouched in wait on the beach, pleased when he realised that the waterfall must’ve covered the noise he must’ve made during his descend. Straightening to his full height, he filled his lungs to the brim and bellowed:

_“My, what a fancy bathtub you’ve got there, Bucky!”_

The reaction he got didn’t disappoint.

Bucky startled visibly, water sloshing violently around him as he whipped around, dropping in and immediately out of a defensive position. His eyes grew two sizes and he startled backward at the sight of Steve, sending more water splashing everywhere.

_“Steve…!”_

Hands on his hips, Steve laughed, feeling a profound sense of satisfaction light up his whole being.

“So _this_ is where you disappear to! Can’t say I blame you for it, though--place’s absolutely _gorgeous._ ”

“How did-- _why_ did-- _how…?_ ” Bucky spluttered.

“Cat got your tongue, Buck?” Steve teased lightly, unable to help himself. “What, you embarrassed that I managed to catch you with your trousers down?”

Sudden, powerful, a brilliant wave of red bloomed across the bridge of Bucky’s nose and his cheeks. He made an aborted motion backwards, sending water churning and rippling around his hips, then stilled. He rolled his bottom lip into his mouth, flickered his eyes everywhere, but said nothing.

Steve’s laugh tapered off and he watched, as fascinated as a kid pressing his nose to a candy store’s window, this new and unfamiliar delight, this treasure he’d unwittingly discovered: the vision that was Bucky Barnes, burning with embarrassment and fidgeting.

“Aw, come on, Bucky,” Steve said. His voice had softened, but hadn’t lost its teasing edge. “You look like that blush is gonna melt your pretty mug off! It’s not _that_ bad. You just got sneaked up on! Like a _total newbie_. Be a good sport and accept defeat, will you? I’ll make you a deal, if you don’t want word to come out of your shame, all you gotta do is shine my shoes on the daily, maybe mend my socks. Take out the trash. That kinda thing.”

Bucky, who’d been sort of inching backwards, stiffened in outrage and looked up with a glare.

“Oh, you slay me, Steve.”

“Sorry pal. Loser’s gotta do what the winner says. Them’s the rules.”

“Oh, now,” Bucky all but growled, crossing his arms. “Were we playing a game? I wasn’t aware.”

“You started it!”

“What? _When?_ ”

“You know when!”

“I do not! I wouldn’t ask if I did!”

“Excuses! All I hear is excuses! You got distracted and I got the jump on you. _I’m good._ And you’re the loser here. Just admit it.”

Bucky fake-laughed, and slapped a wave of water towards Steve in token protest.

“Okay, okay, you’re good little tracker and deserve a medal for your effort. Happy now?”

“That a start,” Steve said, still grinning like a loon. “I still want my shoes shined, though.”

“Oh, you little--” Bucky began. Then, when he saw that Steve was kicking off his shoes and socks and reaching for the hem of his shirt, he screeched: “ _What are you doing??_ ” with real alarm in his voice.

Steve had already tossed his shirt away, and was pulling the strings of his jogging pants when he paused to glance at Bucky.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m joining your for a swim.”

“That… might not be a good idea,” Bucky edged. The pink flush was slowly crawling down his chest.

Steve tilted his head to the side, wearing the look of a confused puppy.

“But why? It’s hot like hell, and I’m all sticky with sweat.”

“Steve,” Bucky enunciated slowly. “Trust me, it’s better if you stay out there.”

Steve swept his eyes along the water, looking for something out of place, something dangerous that might explain Bucky’s tension.

This far from the waterfall, the water was silent and shimmering, blue like a dream. The waves lapping at the shore were foamy, but otherwise clean. For the first few meters in, he could see the grey pebbles on the bottom, scattered about and glittery like coins. The occasional flash of small fish darting past. The fluttery green impression of underwater plants.

“Uhm,” he says, and looked at Bucky with a raised eyebrow. “Why?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, like a man asking for divine patience.

“Steve,” he began after an aggrieved sigh, “Moon of my life…” and Steve _would_ have appreciated the endearment a lot more if Bucky hadn’t been talking to him like a particularly dense two-year old. “…You truly don’t see the problem with your plan?”

“Uh. No…?”

Bucky muttered something incredulous and snarky, shooting another disparaging look skywards.

“Okay. I’ll bite. Whatcha gonna wear in the water?”

Now it was Steve’s turn to level Bucky with an unimpressed look.

“My boxer shorts? Wait, that’s it? That’s the problem?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it!”

“You got and became a bluenose on me, Buck?”

“Of course not!”

“Because it’s not like we never saw each other’s underwear. We even saw Dum Dum’s that time in Berlin!”

“What? What’s Dum Dum’s got to do with--? That was a _mission_! You saw me in my briefs just the other day!”

_“Exactly.”_

“So you get it now?”

“What’s there to _get?_ ” Steve frowned. “I’ll be swimming in my underwear. Big deal. It’s not like I could bring any swimwear along!”

_“And you think I did?!”_

Steve made the puppy impression again.

“So we’re _both_ going to swim in our underwear. I still don’t see what got you so shy.”

Bucky made a frustrated, imploring gesture with his hands, sloshing water everywhere.

“Oh my god Steve, I obviously have no problem with you seeing me in my underwear. _Connect the dots, I beg you_.”

“What dots?” Steve rolled his eyes, thrust his joggers down and kicked them off in a single smooth move. “You’re just being difficult for no reas--”

“ _I’m not wearing underwear okay?!_ ” Bucky said, voice echoing like a gunshot. He rubbed his face with boths hands, and huffed out a laugh, mortified. “I’m not wearing much of _anything._ I’m naked, in here.”

And then he went on to mutter something about having _fought_ without a stitch on before, which was often hard on a man, if not impossible, but he hadn’t had much trouble with it, if anything it was _other people_ who had trouble when the Asset swung out of the tube naked and went in a fighting frenzy. Apparently, nakedness was such a _distraction_ , _he_ was such a distraction, it was dumb luck they never had him employ that tactic on a mission, even if once he _had_ had to slink into a compound less than fully clothed and--but this wasn’t a fight, this was more, this was important, this was _them_ , it was--

But Steve wasn’t listening. Something inside his brain had jarred; his brain stuck on a refrain of “naked, naked, naked”.

He felt his shoulders drop, his hands dangling awkwardly at his hips. His stomach clenched and he froze like a deer blinded by the light. Yes, he saw the problem _now_.

For the first time, he allowed himself to drink all the details in - Bucky’s bare skin, sprinkled with glistening drops; the broad shoulders, freckled by the sun; the powerful arms, the heaving chest with its pebbled nipples; the cut of his abs, the tapered waist, with the deeply etched v leading the eye towards the hairy shadow of his groin. Water dripped down the end of his hair, coated the line of his shoulders, sluiced down the plains and valleys of his body, caressing his skin, like a lover. Like…

…like Steve wanted to do.

Like _he’d been wanting_ to do.

Since the war, since the first time their skin had touched, in that forsaken factory of death; since the first time Bucky had smiled at him; since that first trinket, put with such endearing vulnerability into Steve’s hand; since that first time when he’d pressed Bucky’s body, tense but willing, into the damp earth of a forgotten trench and covered it with his own, shield raised above their heads, breathing in tandem as the world around them burst into explosions and flames.

Steve swallowed.

He wanted.

He _wanted_.

His heart skipped, jumped, rabbited into a gallop. There was a rushing noise in his ears that made him deaf as he slowly, oh-so-slowly, locked eyes with Bucky - those beautiful, _beautiful_ sea-foam eyes blown so wide still, and luminous with emotion - and pushed his fingertip under the waistband of his underwear, swallowing dry, and then again, as he pushed the elastic down, just a little, just a peek, and then further down, baring himself.

The first step he took towards the water was slow, and so was the second, and all that followed. And yet if felt like no more than a heartbeat had passed before he was ankle-deep in the pool, the water frothing against his heated skin, swallowing him gently, lapping at his calves and knees and groin, sucking him in until he was where he yearned to be: breathing Bucky’s air, their mouths an hairsbreadth apart, the water around them rippling and sloshing with the tremors that wracked their skin.

“Steve,” Bucky began. But Steve silenced him, softly at first, with just a finger to his lips, but then, after a breathless moment, he dived in, pressed their bodies together, knee to knee, chest to chest, water sliding between them. He cupped Bucky’s face in his palms, pushing his mouth open with a thumb and delving inside with his tongue, the touch hot, slick, wet, sending fireworks of pleasure shivering across his body. Their hands fumbled, grasped, pulled; their hips shifted, rolling, desperate for contact, for pressure.

Bucky moaned, a glorious sound, when Steve desperately shifted his legs wider apart, nestling their hips together like halves of a puzzle, pushing their swelling erections together in a long, electrifying slide. His skin felt tender and hot, sparkling with pleasure. How had they waited this long? _Why_ had they waited this long?

He pulled away to catch his breath and stared down at Bucky, at his dilated pupils, at his chest panting and flushed, still twitching their hips together, still touching Bucky all over - his hair, his back, his waist, the dips above his buttocks, the round swell of them.

“Steve…” Bucky gasped out again, voice a low, rippling moan, his eyelashes fluttering wildly. “Steve… we can’t… you don’t _know_ about me… I can’t let this… not until I tell you… my past… and then… then I know you _won’t want_ …”

“I want you,” Steve swore. “Always want you. Always have. Always will. You’re mine. You’re _mine_. And I’m yours, all of me is yours, ever yours, Bucky, _Bucky_ \--”

A growl building from deep in his chest, Bucky rocked his hips, moving back into Steve’s cupped palms and then up against his abs, sliding, rolling, moving with a sort of madness to his desperate rhythm. He clung to Steve’s shoulders, and kissed him like he wanted to drink him in, all bite and tongue and teeth, suddenly dominating, suddenly _ravenous_.

And yet, for all this aggression, he was gentling their kiss, taming Steve’s impatience and focusing it into something slower, exploring. He trailed his fingernails down Steve’s skin, painting lines of fire down his chest, across his nipples, along his groin, and then hooked a hand around Steve’s thigh and forced it up and around his own waist, locking it there, letting the friction build, while the fingers of his other hand - the _metal_ hand - curved in the soft crease where Steve’s buttocks met, squeezing and releasing, making way to where Steve had seldom touched himself, making him gasp into the kiss, gasp and roll his hips, chasing the pleasure, drunk on the combined heat of their bodies, panting and feverish.

He wanted…

He _didn’t know_ what he wanted.

His need was a deep, wide chasm, burning with hellfire. There were so many possibilities, so many fantasies to fulfill. He clung to Bucky, hungry mouth to hungry mouth, moving his hips in eager, desperate entreaty, unable to control his hands, his voice, his moans. Full of trust, he let his weight fall against Bucky and was caught, just like he’d known he would. Cradled to Bucky’s chest, the water slicking the hot, long slide of their bodies into perfection, he was half-led, half-carried to one of the boulders. The shock of the sun-warmed stone against his skin startled a new moan from him, making him arch up, draw Bucky to him, heart to heart, and then--

And _then._

。°。☆ °。°。☆ °。°。☆ 。°。

They petted each other and nuzzled like kittens afterwards, drunk-happy and sated. They wasted the rest of the day away splashing around in the warm pool, bathing and playing lazily, comfortable and settled in their limbs, in their nudity. All throughout, Bucky would go still and serious sometimes, and make a valiant attempt to tell Steve about the secrets that haunted him. But he looked so devastated, so resigned, that Steve silenced him vehemently each time, and was quick to distract him. They came together a second time, then a third, a _fourth_ , exploring each other with fingers and tongue. Each time, the pleasure was as high and shocking as the first, sweetly addictive.

Evening was slinking upon them when Steve slipped through the water a final time, moulded himself to Bucky’s back, tonguing the wide line of his shoulders until Bucky turned and brought his arms around Steve, swaying them to an imaginary tune. He began singing under his breath:

“It's been a long, long time… You'll never know how many dreams… I dreamed about you…”

Steve grinned, delighted, and rediscovered just how hard it was to kiss someone when you’re both smiling like loons. He was soft and spent, drowsy with contentedness, but surprisingly he felt the first embers of desire stirring inside him once more. He tilted his head into the kiss, pressing closer, hands asking a silent question as they drew lazy curlicues down Bucky’s body, tracing down the ridges of his abdomen to sink in the curls surrounding his sex.

And then---

\---then something, some subtle flash of _danger_ , crashed into his awareness.

He pushed Bucky to the side them same moment that Bucky pulled _him_ , and they rolled behind a boulder not a second before a bullet sank in the churning water where they’d been standing.

Bucky looked up sharply, eyes narrowed, half shielding and half restraining Steve before he could go out swinging, a task that was made somewhat easier because Steve was clutching him close just as tightly, trying to cover Bucky from any following shot.

Their attacker was easy to spot, standing proud in the rustling trees, her hair a shock of fiery red in their green mobile shadows.

Steve tensed, and underneath his arm he could feel Bucky bristle in the way of a ruffled cat. Incensed, he barked out something harsh and clipped in a foreign, guttural language. It might’ve been Russian, for all Steve knew.

The beautiful gun-woman in the trees gave a throaty, rippling laugh and purred back something silky in the same tongue. The cadence of her movements was every bit as feline as Bucky’s as she pulled the security on her gun and holstered it. With a glance over her shoulder, eyebrow cocked up coolly, she turned and strode purposefully to where Bucky’s discarded clothes laid, neatly folded on a flat rock and anchored in place with a handful of polished stones. She pinched his sweatpants and dangled them pointedly between two fingers, and then threw them in the direction of the shore. Now that there was room on the rock, she planted her butt down, arms crossed and eyebrow cocked expectantly. Her mouth was poised in a smile, but there was ice in her eyes, and she was gripping her biceps so tightly it was a surprise her nails weren’t drawing blood.

“Who’s that woman?” Steve demanded in a whisper.

Bucky heaved a gusty sigh. “That would be Natalia.”

Steve’s eyes cut towards him, narrowed into slits. “ _The_ Natalia? The one from your stories that you couldn’t wait to introduce to me?” he asked, toeing the line between incredulous and incensed. Bucky’s face scrunched up in a grimace that might’ve looked funny, or even adorable, in any other occasion but _this_.

“Uh, yeah.”

He strode naked and unashamed out of the water, hunted around for Steve’s clothes on the shoreline - the socks and shoes were arranged somewhat neatly, the balled-up shirt was hanging from a branch, the boxers lay trampled on the gravel, while the jogging pants lay in a sad puddle. He forced Steve back into his clothes, shielding him with his body so that Natalia couldn’t see him.

Once he was satisfied that Steve’s modesty had been preserved, he gave a sharp nod and pulled his sweatpants on like an afterthought. Barefoot, he padded across the gravel and soft tufts of grass to where Natalia sat. He towered over her in silence, and despite the smile teasing at her lips, her upturned face looked porcelain-perfect and aloof.

Silently, he offered his arms to her. She stood at his offer, and seemed to arch towards him for a moment, as graceful as a ballet dancer. Or perhaps it was shadows passing over her that created the illusion. Because no matter what her body seemed to say, she didn’t accept Bucky’s touch in the end, unlike Tony that first day. And yet Steve still felt that same suffocating feeling of possessiveness swamp his mind.

He was positive he hadn’t made a sound, or even moved. But Natalia’s eyes flickered up to him all the same. For a moment, she considered Steve with open curiosity.

Then without warning her regard morphed into what a viper might reserve for an intruder before the bite. Never letting go of Steve’s trapped eyes, she fell into Bucky, tucking herself against his bare chest, letting him almost sweep her off her feet with the force of his embrace.

Unbidden, a spear of a thought went through Steve, sharp and red-hot: a painful throb that cut his breath short.

She thinks that Bucky belongs to her.

_She thinks that Bucky belongs to her._

And that, oh _that_ just wouldn’t do.

  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**

END NOTES:

Forties lingo:

 **You slay me** = You’re hilarious

 **Bluenose** = a prude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost never write high-rated stuff anymore because I'm just not good at it. And up till the last second I still wasn't sure whether to have them make love, or be interrupted. The honest plan was to have Natasha show up way earlier and stop them, because I think THAT ought to happen after the whole Winter Soldier reveal.  
> But the boys have a mind of their own, and I am merely a scribe writing what they dictate.
> 
> ...just please tell me the scene itself wasn't that bad >_<
> 
> ALSO: Bucky and Nat are going to be real close, and Steve's gonna bristle with jealousy, but this story won't have any Buckytasha in it. Which is why I didn't add the tag. I'm sorry to disappoint the fans of this pairing (also didn't tag as not to lure and disappoint), but really, there is no romance between them in this particular story. D:


	11. Chapter 11 - Interlude n° 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natalia’s words were sparse, clipped, clear and irrefutable: _“The honeymoon is over.”_

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 11:** Interlude 2

 **Author:** Nemesi.

**Beta:** Self-betaed 

**Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 2059

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warning:**

**Summary:** Natalia’s words were sparse, clipped, clear and irrefutable: _“The honeymoon is over.”_

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  
  


**T** hunder started rolling across the sky as they hiked in tense silence back to the cottage. It started raining not one minute after they secured the door behind them, and when they talked, it was with the insistent backdrop of violent rain pounding against the windows.

Natalia’s words were sparse, clipped, clear and irrefutable: _“The honeymoon is over.”_

Bucky’s arm whirred as he tightened his fist, but it was Steve the one who spoke.

“I thought I wasn’t schedule to “return to society” for another sixty days. What happened out there?”

Natalia glanced at him, vaguely amused. It looked like she couldn’t quite assess him, and instead of troubling her, she found the challenge delightful.

“What happen _out here_ , is more like?” She quipped.

“Natalia,” Bucky warned.

“I’m just saying,” she defended.

“Natalia.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“ _Natalia._ ”

“All right, all right, no teasing the veteran sweethearts on the reunion sex, I get it.”

“You’re a menace,” Bucky groused, much too fondly to fool anybody. He sighed a gusty sigh, and then in a softer voice entreated: “ _Natalia._ ”

Something about her melted just the slightest bit.

“It’s a mess,” she admitted. Her hands were back around her biceps, gripping tightly. “Fury found Banner. He sent me on an extraction mission, but Tony got there first.”

“He triggered the Hulk?” Bucky asked tightly, but Natalia shook her head, red hair wishing softly around her chin.

“Surprisingly, no. But they’re both holed up at Stark Tower now, and refusing to come out. Fury sent Culson to mediate, but I’m not 100% sure they will help.”

“Help with what?” Steve asked, unnerved. Natalia looked cool and collected on the surface, but tension was limning her whole being. The harder she tried to mask it, the more it seemed to bleed into the air, and it set each of Steve’s instincts on edge.

She took a moment to visibly steel herself, and admitted:

“We’re about to be invaded.”

“Who by?”

She glanced at him with that same amused regard as before, leaned a fraction towards him, just that calculated little bit that’d hook a person into her orbit. Once she was sure of his attention, she mouthed: “Aliens…!” greatly exaggerating the motion of her mouth.

Steve turned his face from her, annoyed with her for her dismissive humor. He felt the weight of her gaze on him still, cool and assessing, gauging his reaction like a lab monkey’s. He loathed the feeling of being studied, and he felt his blood boil underneath his skin like lava. He would’ve left the room altogether, but Bucky’s voice - the steel in it - guided his gaze back around.

“The guy from Mexico?” Bucky asked.

“This is bigger than that,” Natalia acknowledged in a spiritless voice.

Steve thought about her words. He tried to picture something wicked and monstrous spreading like plague, swallowing the world into darkness. He tried, and found it easy, because he had seen it happening before. He’d seen a mousy excuse of a man keeping human pieces in lined jars. He’d seen a grinning red skull, bloodless and grotesque, mounted on the neck of an otherwise unremarkable man. He’d seen rays of cold blue light erasing people from existence. He’d seen a glossy cube tearing the air asunder like tissue, summoning forth the mirage of space.

He drew a sharp breath, watching Bucky and Natalia with renewed interest.

Bucky pursed his lips, and seemed to mull over something before asking:

“…where’s Clint?”

A crack appeared in Natalia’s diamond-like demeanor. She pressed her lips together, her knuckles whitening like bones around her biceps.

“Hawkeye’s been compromised.”

“Where is he now?”

“We don’t know.”

“Is he hurt?”

“We couldn’t say.”

“ _Natalia,_ ” Bucky snapped, and Steve couldn’t recall ever hearing a more clear “soldier: mission report.” By the way Natalia snapped to attention, she had heard the same.

“Yesterday at 8:00, the Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. research facility registered an unprecedented energy surge in one of the bunker levels. Hawkeye was on site to keep an eye on the research team, and he helped secure the facility as the staff was evacuated and every piece of technology on site shipped into a more secure location. However, the energy spikes didn’t lead to an explosion, as Dr Selvig had feared. It seems that… “something” …from outer space created a bridge to our planet, instead. Hawkeye was ordered to engage the hostile that emerged from the portal, but suddenly and inexplicably began to aid him instead. Cameras caught him leaving the site in an armoured pickup with at least three more individuals, carrying weapons and sensitive tech. Until we understand why our own operative has sided with the enemy, Hawkeye has been marked as a hostile. The order is to shoot him on sight.”

Bucky answered nothing for a long moment. He was thinking of something, with such a frightful depth to his eyes that even Steve was teetering the edge between awestruck and petrified.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Bucky asked her.

Her lips twitched into a wry curve.

“Oh, there’s so much of it, _Soldat._ ”

Bucky’s eyes went shrewd, and his mouth pressed into a line. When he made as if to open his mouth, she held her hand up sharply, cutting his words off in the bud.

“If you ever trusted me, trust me when I say: we don’t have time for this. Hawkeye had been given a mission inside a mission _inside a mission_. No matter what he discovered, we can’t focus on it. We are on borrowed time. If we don’t stop the invasion, we are all dead.”

“How do Bucky and I factor into this,” Steve came in between them with his hands held out, ever the pacifier. Ever the _strategist_. They were nothing but pieces on a board, that much was clear to him. And pieces were expendable. He needed details in order to assess what role each of them had. To make sure no lives were lost. Especially not _Bucky’s_. Steve was done losing him. He’d move heaven and earth - he’d _burn_ heaven and earth - to keep Bucky by his side.

Natalia’s face lit up with a sort of relish.

“In light of this threat, Fury has decided to reactivate the Avengers Initiative, effect immediately. You’ve been called back to New York because the world is in dire need of heroes. And who better to call, than the men who fought Hydra during WW2?”

“You know what I am,” Bucky answered her flatly. “And that’s not even in the _neighborhood_ of “hero”. Besides, Steve’s not on active duty. Fury can’t order him shit.”

Natalia hummed.

“The Council says otherwise. Since his blue ticket discharge was recalled under Milk in 1977, and Captain Rogers’s status officially reads as M.I.A., he is still a regular member of the SSR division of the U.S. army. And SSR is the ground SHIELD was built on. As such, the Captain is considered a SHIELD agent through and thorough.”

Surprise and then anger flashed across Bucky’s face.

_“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”_

Natalia held both arms out and away from her body, angled her chin low, tucked her shoulders in like a bird would tuck its wings, looking the picture of innocence.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” she sing-songed, not an ounce of tension in her posture despite the way that Bucky was stalking towards her.

Steve held an arm out and across Bucky’s chest, stopping his murderous advance.

“Aliens are real?” he asked Natalia.

“They are.”

“And you think we can stop them?”

“Not just you. An elite Team of particularly gifted individuals is being assembled to face threats that a normal human could never hope to survive.”

“Gifted?” he growled.

“Enhanced,” she corrected with a shrug. “Superhuman. Godlike. Or Monstrous. Depends on who you ask.” She flickered her gaze tellingly towards Bucky and then back at him, a challenge in her eyes.

Steve felt his own eyes narrow. What she was implying was preposterous. And yet, the notion needled at him. Unbidden, thoughts came to him, of Bucky hiding his arm from Steve, of his ageless youth, of the way he referred to his past, of the painful resignation hanging like a yoke around his neck.

Was Natalia right?

Did Bucky _really_ see himself as monstrous?

Worse still… was Natalia _challenging_ Steve? Implying that he might ever see Bucky as anything less than… well, his other half, really? With all his flaws, yes, but all his wonderful strengths, too?

Steve’s mood soured further, anger brewing inside his chest. Natalia seemed to sense this. Abruptly, she stopped pushing him, stopped talking, stopped moving altogether. Her ever-shifting facade was wiped into the almost eerie blankness of frosted glass.

Slowly, a sense of uncertainty, of unease, creeped into her countenance. She’d put Steve in a mold, like many before her had. But he wasn’t fitting in it. He was bursting at the seams, anger and possessiveness making his whole being burn bright. His reactions were nothing like she had predicted, and rather than amuse, it was starting to trouble her. Who was this man? Was he a menace?

Unexpectedly, Bucky threw up his hands.

_“If you two dumb Doras would stop it with the pissing contest, that’d be nice.”_

Natalia gave a sharp - and completely staged - outcry of indignation.

“I wasn’t--!”

“Oh, you most certainly _were_ ,” Bucky steamrolled over her. “I know how you get, and I am just as overprotective as you are, but Natalia, this is _Steve_. _My_ Steve. _You know how much he means to me,_ ” he stressed. And, well, pride is a terrible, horrible sin, but Steve glowed so bright with a sense of vindicated satisfaction, that he could probably be seen from outer space.

Natalia stilled, and this time her facade didn’t _just crack_. She pursed her lips, and for an absurd moment, she was a defiant little girl denying the adults with all her diminutive pride, curls bouncing as she shook her head, tears clinging to her eyelashes. Bucky’s heart went out to that little girl who was lost so long ago, but Natalia should know better than to test _Steve_ of all people.

She crossed her arms under her breasts, but eventually gave a nod. Knowing her, it could’ve meant just about anything, but Bucky held nothing but trust for his Spider, so he eased back with a nod of his own.

“And you too,” he told Steve in warning. _“Behave.”_

“I wasn’t--”

“You were _this close_ to growling at her,” Bucky said, holding up his thumb and pointer finger. “Jealousy is cute only up to a point, you punk. Now. _Behave._ ”

Apparently, “behave” to Steve meant reaching out, cupping Bucky’s cheek and reeling him in. Bucky turned his face away at first. Undeterred, Steve dropped kisses and murmured apologies to Bucky’s cheek and jaw and down the side of his neck, until Bucky surrendered with a sigh, and let their mouths touch. Tension seeped from their bones, and when they separated it was with a small, private smile on both of their faces.

Natalia murmured something contemplative and soft in Russian, wistful in ways Steve couldn’t begin to comprehend, and left abruptly.

“What did she say?” he asked.

Bucky chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“That love is a steel trap, and it’s got its teeth in me. I’d better chop off my leg and run away while I still have time, if I want to survive it. Survive _you_.”

Instinctually, Steve drew Bucky closer by the waist, clinging as tight as he could manage.

“Don’t. Don’t you _ev_ er leave me,” he said urgently, half-plea and half-order and all of it desperate.

Bucky gazed at him with a sort of sadness in his eyes that made Steve ache.

“Then don’t let me go,” he countered, somber and low. “I’m yours for as long as you want to keep me.”

“Forever then,” Steve swore. “To the end of the line and beyond, Buck.”

Bucky smiled one of his sad smiles again, and said nothing.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~End of the Interlude 2~**

**TBC**


	12. Chapter 12 - Our hands are tied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before he knew what was happening, Steve was pushed into an improved version of his suit and shipped across the world to Stuttgart, Germany. Bucky had his own uniform, all black leather and full of straps, which left his metal arm uncovered. The surprise was seeing Tony in his uniform - a suit of armour like a medieval knight’s, but painted a garish red and gold.
> 
> A suit of armour that could fly.
> 
> Steve… carefully filed that away for later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super-long chapter because I miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight be late next week!

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 12:** Our hands are tied

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

**Chapter Word Count: 4460 circa.**

**Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warning:**

**Summary:** Before he knew what was happening, Steve was pushed into an improved version of his suit and shipped across the world to Stuttgart, Germany. Bucky had his own uniform, all black leather and full of straps, which left his metal arm uncovered. The surprise was seeing Tony in his uniform - a suit of armour like a medieval knight’s, but painted a garish red and gold.

A suit of armour that could fly.

Steve… carefully filed that away for later.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**N** atalia had reached their preserve using a Quinjet, the same way Bucky and Steve had all those months ago. They boarded it in silence, fully expecting to be taken back to Tony’s Tower. Halfway through their trip, Natalia received a message and abruptly changed course.

They landed after a couple of hours on an aircraft carrier the likes of which Steve had never seen or imagined before. It was big, bigger than the Valkyrie had been, longer than the train in the Alps: it was easily as big as the factory in Kreischberg. People in tight black and blue uniforms moved about the sleek flight deck with surgical precision, securing several Quinjets and strapping down containers. They training was impeccable, and they moved like gears in a clock, mostly ignoring Steve and Bucky as they clanged down their Quinjet’s ramp.

“This air. Sort of feels familiar,” Steve commented, squinting against the sun. The ship was docked in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by an endless spread of water on all sides. Light rippled from all around them, bouncing off the waves and the metal of the ship alike. After spending so much time in the cool shadows of the Quinjet, all that brightness made his eyes ache.

Bucky shrugged his metal arm.

“‘S only been months for you, and I wish I could say military stuff will stop feeling natural to you at one point, but I’d be lying.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds too long, both thinking of the war and trying not to. Natalia slinked between them, jostling them out of their trance, and causally led them out of the sun and into the shadow of the radar tower, where a small group was waiting for them.

Tony they knew, and Natalia introduced the man in a suit as Phil Coulson, her handler.

“He’s going to ask you to sign his Captain America cards at one point or the other,” Natalia warned Steve sottovoce. “They’re _vintage_.”

Coulson smiled good-naturedly and shook Steve’s hand when it was offered.

“I’m a huge fan, sir,” he said, and they left it at that.

The man with the eyepatch and the glower was Colonel Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD. There was an indefinable air about him that put Steve immediately on alert.

Rather than show his suspicion, Steve gave him his best USO poster smile, and exchanged a few polite words with him. He was trying to get a better feeling of the man, but Fury was near impossible to read. Frustrated with his elusiveness, but unwilling to show it, Steve let go of Fury’s hand. The Director stepped aside, and jabbed his thumb behind him.

“And that’s Dr Banner. You might have heard of him?”

Bruce Banner was… well, “adorable” is the word that first came to Steve’s mind. With the way Tony kept gushing about him whenever Bucky had videocalled, he’d sort of imagined Banner as a larger-than-life creature of myth, someone who could scale whole buildings with a leap, crush stones with his bare hands. Stuff like that.

Instead, Banner was an average-height, average-built man, with greying curls and wire-rimmed spectacles forever sliding down his freckled nose. The wide-eyed, frazzled looking head was basically all that Steve could see of him, though. Tony stood protectively in front of the good doctor, chest puffed-out, glaring and with his arms crossed. Basically the human equivalent of an armoire or a boulder. He was radiating such a strong “touch my Boo and die” vibe, that even Bucky had to press his lips together to contain a cackle.

“ _Uh,_ ” Steve said contemplatively. “Yeah. I kind of-- you’ve been traveling around third world countries and offering medical assistance without fee for the last few years, haven’t you?”

Banner’s eyebrows went up in surprise, and he ducked around a dismayed Tony to reach Steve.

“ _That’s_ what you heard about me?” he said, fumbling as he reached for Steve’s proffered hand.

“That’s what Tony told me. Is it wrong?”

“ _Ton…?_ I, uh, no. I mean--” He’d whipped towards Tony and back so fast his glasses almost slid off his nose. He hastened to push them back into position. “A-Among other things, yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“Bruce Banner is a _genius._ ” Tony boasted. “He’s got a gazillion of doctorates and he’s going to find our runaway birdie-and-cubie combo in a jiffy.”

Wide eyes turned towards him.

“Thanks Mr Stark for--”

“It’s Tony. Please. I beg you. I’m told I look _very_ pretty when I beg.” He wagged his eyebrows for added effect.

“Mr Stark,” Bruce insisted. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but you don’t need to butter me up. I’m not going to--”

“Go green? On me? What a pity. I’m a fan of the Jolly Green Guy, have I told you that already?”

“Only several times,” Bruce replied, and gifted Tony with an incredulous smile. Tony grew several inches taller with barely-repressed satisfaction.

“Gentlemen,” Natalia interrupted smoothly. “Why don’t we take this inside? It’s going to become really hard to breathe out here in a few moments.”

Her words were followed by a loud whirring noise. Curious, Steve went to peer over the edge of the carrier. Water churned and frothed down below, as some sort of propellers started spinning around and changing position underwater.

“Is this a submarine?”

As soon as he asked, the deck began to shake under him, making him teeter in search of balance. He watched in awe as the ship began to lift itself vertically from the water, rather than sink into it like he’d expected.

“Not a submarine,” he commented, mostly to himself.

“Nope, it’s much worse than that,” Banner said faintly from behind him, looking vaguely green around the edges. There were a lot of shared glances, and then everybody was scrambling to escort him inside.

Uh.

 _That was strange_ , Steve thought. But most things in the future were, so he just shrugged and followed after.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**T** he inside of the ship reminded Steve of the place he’d woken up, with its echoing metal corridors and the humming fluorescent lights bouncing off the reflective surfaces. The bridge of the ship was a flurry of activity, less populated but even noisier than the deck. Several SHIELD personnel were busy at their stations, clacking away at their keyboards and exchanging clipped, terse words through their headgear. Their tight energy was palpable in the air.

A woman stood and left the command chair to Director Fury. She offered a nod to their little party, but didn’t glance in their direction as they were escorted back out of the bridge and deeper into the ship. She had an air about her that Steve found familiar, but he didn’t dwell on it for long.

Their next stop was a laboratory, impressive in ways Steve had no words to describe. Intimidating even, with its mysterious machines and the holograms that Tony conjured into being with a flick of his fingers.

“All right,” he began, clearly on the tail ends of a previous conversation. “Deed’s done! I secured, like aaaaaaall spectrometers in the world and got them calibrated for Gamma Rays. Talk dirty to me, Banner. Whatcha needed these for?”

Dr Banner stepped inside the lab a man transformed: less hesitant, standing taller, obviously more in his element.

“I’ve been working on a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition, which will allow us to narrow down the field and find this… _Cube_ at least 27% faster than using satellite data to run facial recognition.”

“I’m swooning.”

“I shall ready the smelling salts.”

“He has SASS!” Tony exulted, and nearly swooned for real when Banner chuckled.

The good doctor crowded Tony away from the hologram monitor with a hip-check that surprised them both. Briefly, Banner turned back into the shyer, more hesitant version of himself; whereas Tony looked like he might spontaneously lift up into the air, as if all the blood in his body had been replaced with helium.

A collective amused glance later, they left the two scientists to their awkward dance.

Coulson lead the way to the sleeping quarters, where they were assigned a stateroom each and invited to get some rest for the time being.

Natalia cocked an eyebrow at that and said: “Truly? We’re keeping the lovebirds separated?”

Coulson spread his arms.

“It’s two adjoining rooms. The closest thing to a honeymoon suite we have on the Helicarrier. Seemed fitting.”

Natalia grinned back with all her teeth.

“Oh, I see how it is. Trying to ingratiate the Captain to get yourself those autographs, aren’t you?”

Truthfully, Steve felt his stomach pitch a little, hearing these strangers discuss his and Bucky’s relationship out in the open, in such a careless fashion. Some part of his brain kept expecting someone to jump at them from the shadows, screaming, raising their fists, spitting in their faces, dragging them apart, switchblades at their throat.

The rest of him was nothing short of _awed._

Back in his day, so many young things had been found, beaten black and blue, crumpled like garbage in the alleyways, or stiff and bloated in the water at the docks. So many Queens had disappeared after police raids, or were beaten within an inch of their lives. So many blue tickets in the army. So many “accidents”.

This freedom to be open about his sexuality was new and wonderful to him, but he was recalcitrant to settle into it. Deep in some corner of his soul, little Steve Rogers with the bird-bones and the knuckles forever scraped-raw was standing on guard, poised like an attack dog, ready to defend himself and Bucky if needed. Steve barely dared to hope that there’d be no need for him to come out swinging.

“I’ll sign them,” he blurted, if only to force himself out of his thoughts. His ears burned when everybody turned to look at him. “The. Uh. Cards. It’s no problem, really.”

Coulson lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. A voice in his earpiece called him away before they could finalise any plans, but he left with a promise to be back in the morning with the cards and hot coffee for everyone.

That night, Steve and Bucky slept in the same bed, skin to skin, holding hands. They’d pulled the covers all the way over their heads and spent hours holding each other, breathing in silence, the whole universe narrowed to that pocket of humid air they’d created for themselves.

It was the last bit of peace they got for a while.

In the morning, they met the aliens.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**B** efore he knew what was happening, Steve was pushed into an improved version of his suit and shipped across the world to Stuttgart, Germany. Bucky had his own uniform, all black leather and full of straps, which left his metal arm uncovered. The surprise was seeing Tony in _his_ uniform - a suit of armour like a medieval knight’s, but painted a garish red and gold.

A suit of armour that could _fly_.

Steve… carefully filed that away for later.

Much later.

Finding the alien entity, fighting him, meeting his brother, escorting both back to the Helicarrier… it was all a blur. Ironically, the clearest part of it all was the fight they had while under the influence of the alien’s mind-controlling sceptre.

Steve would never forget the way Tony had gotten into his face, taunting him, belittling him, questioning his judgment, his worth, his intelligence, his sacrifice, his _death_. And after that, worst of all: questioning his devotion, his feelings - it was crystal clear in his mind, frozen in time.

He’d never forget snarling back with unstrapped fury, savage like a beast. Telling Tony that he had _no right to pass judgment._ No idea how it felt to die, your heart first, slipped from your own useless fingers, and then your soul, drowned by guilt and anger; and then, only then, at last, when it didn’t matter anymore, the death of the empty husk that was his own body, rotting slow and excruciating in the icy depths.

He’d never forget Natalia sneering at the mention of his love for Bucky, as if sentiments were nothing but a farce. He’d never forget Bucky pleading and then chastising and then yelling at her, their fight a quickfire volley of Russian words that slowly frayed into something softer, until the fragments of a lullaby, gentle and sad, had wafted between them.

Steve had shouldered his way between them - Bucky’s mine - and growled about SHIELD - Bucky’s _mine_ \- about the mass-destruction weapons they’d been building - _Bucky’s mine!!_ \- that were an exact copy of Hydra’s own.

Natalia had gone the colour of bleached bones but she’d held her ground, defending SHIELD like a knight would defend her Queen’s honour. Fury had gotten involved, denying that SHIELD might be up to no good and then putting the blame on Loki’s brother, who’d started laughing at the accusation like one trampling over ants might laugh at their scramble.

Tony had scoffed at Fury, Natalia had snapped at him, and Bucky had put himself between them, made himself a target of Fury’s recriminations. Then Natalia had spat about the red in her ledger, and somehow her angry need to atone, her determined horror had resonated with Bucky, pulling him in her orbit. Her words of spite and reproach had made him go pale, suddenly more contemplative than angry.

His resigned silence had prompted Tony to step up in his defence, furious; and Loki’s brother, Thor, had sneered in contempt at their behaviour. That dragon in Steve’s chest, that beast of brimstone and anger, had surged protectively, spread clawed wings and roared in all their faces.

Shaking, Dr Banner had walked himself into a corner, breathing fast and brandishing Loki’s scepter like a scythe. The blue gem on its tip was glowing brightly now, glowing like the Cube had glowed inside the Valkyrie right before tearing reality asunder.

Right before…

_Right…_

That image had needled at Steve’s consciousness, forcing him to pause, to think.

The wave of their collective anger had crested, fear mixing in like a rotten smell.

This wasn’t _right._

This wasn’t _them--_

But the clarity that followed, the sense that something had played with them, pulled their strings like puppets, had been as sharp as it was short lived.

An explosion of light from the scepter. The Helicarrier rocking under the force of an outside attack. The floor had shaken, ripped open, sparkles bursting from the equipment all around them. They had been all flung aside like ragdolls, and as they took a moment to get their bearings, Dr Banner - unsure, bumbling Banner with the forever-eskew glasses and the shy mannerism - had curled on himself, letting loose a roar that made their teeth rattle inside their skull. His skin had rippled, his bones had creaked, and a giant with green skin had burst forth from inside the man, pried the metal walls open with his bare hands, and launched himself in the bowels of the Helicarrier, Natalia hot in pursuit.

Forced to cooperate or let the hundreds of people on the Helicarrier die a horrible death, they had managed, somehow, to be civil long enough to keep the ship in the air.

But once the dust had settled, they found out that Loki had escaped, Coulson was dead, and both Bruce and Thor were lost: fallen from the Helicarrier.

The only bright side in the whole mess was that they had retrieved their missing operative - Clint Barton, codename: Hawkeye. Natalia and Bucky’s friend.

It wasn’t nowhere near enough to help with the crushing sense of failure, but it was all they had.

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**“I** ’m sorry,” Steve murmured, combing gentle fingers down Bucky’s long, matted hair. They didn’t know where they were exactly. It was just the first quiet, cool corner they found after Fury told them about Culson, about Banner and Thor.

Silent and exhausted, they’d slipped like ghosts inside a tear in the wall and into a half-ruined cabin, tucking themselves as close as possible in the enclosed space. Steve was perched on a metal table that was miraculously still standing, and had drawn Bucky to stand in the cradle of his thighs, holding him there with gentle pressure.

“What are you sorry for?” Bucky murmured in the same tone, leaning into the touch.

Steve shrugged. There was a rapidly-fading bruise on the edge of Bucky jaw that Steve kept thumbing gently, fascinated with how fast the skin was paling back to its original colour. Bucky smiled when Steve transferred the touch to his bottom lip, and kissed his thumb once, twice.

He was similarly taken with the long gash on Steve’s forehead, rubbing the edge of it with unfailing gentleness, almost as if the care and worry might transfer from his fingertips to the skin and speed the healing along.

“All of it.”

“Loki’s actions are not your fault.”

“I can still feel sorry for what happened.”

Bucky smiled ruefully, like he’d heard that same exchange many times before. He bumped their noses together, opened up to Steve when he tilted his chin up and kissed Bucky softly on the mouth, sinking his tongue inside.

“Your friend Clint…”

“Natalia is with him. I’ll have a talk with him later. He’s going to need all the support he can get.”

“What happened to him is _sick_ ,” Steve avowed. “Being unmade like that, being _used_ like that. Having someone drive you out of your own brain and force your body to obey them. And when you break free, you find out you’ve killed people. It’s. It’s a perversion. It’s _revolting_. I’m so disgusted. I don’t think I could stand--”

Bucky pulled away abruptly, breathing as raggedly as a man in the agony of pain. Steve reached out to him, and tried not to jump too visibly in surprise when Bucky flinched away.

“Yeah,” Bucky croaked out. “It’s sickening.”

“Hey, hey,” Steve tried to make Bucky turn around without forcing his touch on him. He twisted and craned to catch Bucky’s eyes, but eventually he was outstubborned and had to give up. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he crooned gently.

Bucky shook his head, his hair swaying like reed.

“Not your fault. It’s true what you said. It’s _sickening,_ and I can’t expect you to---”

“Bucky,” Steve began, a chasm opening where his heart ought to be. “Bucky, does this have anything to do with--”

Bucky flinched again, a whole-body shudder at the end of which he curled, making himself small. His hair fell like a curtain around his face, hiding the devastated look Steve knew was sitting upon his features.

“Steve,” he croaked. “Steve, I need to tell you…”

 _“THAT SON OF A BITCH ALIEN DIVA!”_ Tony’s voice boomed out of the comm systems, making them both jump. “AVENGERS OR WHAT THE FUCK WE’RE NAMED AT THIS POINT IF WE EVEN HAVE A NAME AT ALL, ASSEMBLE INTO THE HANGAR L3 RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. AND I SAY NOW BUT I MEAN TEN FRIGGIN’ MINUTES AGO. NOW _SCRAM._ ” There was a loud burst of feedback, then utter silence.

Steve and Bucky hurried out after sharing a wide-eyed look, and converged to the hangar at the same time as Natalia and Clint did.

“Where’s Tony?” Steve asked sharply.

“I’M ON MY WAY TO THE TOWER,” Steve’s suit answered for him, making him startle.

“Stark?” he asked, a little dubiously, to his wristband, where the sound had generated from. Then with a touch of anger in his tone: “Soldiers don’t go and leave the rest of the squad behind, Stark!”

“NOT. A. SOLDIER!” Tony snapped. “AND I LEFT BECAUSE I’M FASTER WITHOUT YOU ALL.”

Steve looked up, gestured at the others to board the closest Quinjet, then jogged after them.

“Where’s the fire, Stark?”

“THE FIRE IS THE ONE I’LL LIGHT UP UNDER LOKI’S SKINNY ASS.”

“TONY,” Bucky snapped back. “What happened?”

A string of expletives later, Tony elaborated:

“Brucie’s algorithm worked, we found the cube. Loki is planning to use MY reactor back at MY Tower to kickstart the cube and open up a portal. AND GUESS WHAT?! MY PEPPER-MINT AND MY RHODEY-POO ARE AT THE TOWER AND I WON’T ALLOW HIM TO TOUCH MY PEPPER-MINT AND MY RHODEY-POO, OKAY?!”

“That’s an awful lot of “my” for one sentence,” Steve muttered, but Natalia snapped: “This isn’t about your people!” over him.

“NO, IT’S ABOUT ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE, BUT _MY_ PEOPLE GET PRECEDENCE AND IF YOU TRY TO STOP ME I’LL SHOOT A PLASMA BLAST UP YOUR--”

“Tony,” Natalia recovered smoothly. “We won’t stop you. We just need you to wait for us and work with us as a team.”

“Teams have scouts, Red Scare. Surprise! I volunteer as a scout. I’ll do my little scouty duties, but also kick some ass and blow some stuff up as I wait for you to get there. Iron Man out.”

The communication cut off with a loud ping that had Steve gritting his teeth.

“Is he always like that?” he ground out in the tense silence. He was answered by a choir of groans.

“Always.”

“Every time.”

“He means well, though?” Natalia and Bucky’s friend offered. Steve hadn’t even _felt_ the Quinjet take off, but the other man was getting up from the pilot seat, autopilot obviously engaged, so they must’ve left the Helicarrier already.

“Barton, right?” Steve asked.

“Hawkeye at your service, Cap. You can call me Clint.”

“Call me Steve,” he replied. They shook hands, sharing a grim nod. “What have you got for me, soldier?”

Clint grimaced.

“Not much. Didn’t need to know details to follow orders, and Loki wasn’t keen on sharing.”

“A detailed explanation of his plans would’ve been a Godsend, but mostly I wanted to know how you’re doing.”

Barton - Clint - seemed surprised, like he wasn’t expecting Steve to care. He recovered quickly, and met his eyes.

“Like I’ve been through a meat grinder, if I’m honest. But putting an arrow through Loki’s eye socket, that’d be the best cure, I’m sure.”

Steve quirked an eyebrow.

“You an archer?”

“The best in the world,” Hawkeye answered, which such a poised certainty in his tone, that his sentence rang like one of those truths everybody could swear by, like the sun dawning east and the sky being blue.

He held Steve’s gaze for a minute, until something in his posture relaxed minutely. He turned back towards Natalia. “Ain’t I?” he prodded, eyebrows wiggling.

Her gaze flickered over him. She looked entirely unamused, but the twinkle in her eye gave her away.

“Not that hard when there must be, what, five of you in total?”

“Archers are so underestimated it’s sad. Arrows are an awesome weapon, you know. Light to carry, fast, long-range, versatile, silent.”

“I’m still firmly in camp guns, Clint.”

“Aw, boo, I’ll convert you one of these days, you’ll see.”

Steve could appreciate their interaction for what it was - a way to ease the tension, to bring a semblance of camaraderie into an otherwise mismatched team where Steve himself was the odd man out. Still, he was at least a bit relieved when Bucky, who had retreated to a hidden weapon rack to pick some additional guns and ammo, said a curt:

“Clint.”

“What? I wasn’t flirting with Tash, I swear.”

“Clint.”

“I wasn’t flirting with your husband either!”

“Clint.”

“Oh man, could you not “Clint” me, please? Feels like you’re reading into my mind or something and chastising me before I even know what I’m about to do wrong.”

“ _Clint._ ”

Hawkeye threw up his hands.

“Shut the pie hole, go crawl under a rock, die in shame, I get it.”

Bucky pinned him with a gaze barely this side of glacial.

“Stop freaking out, stop trying so hard to be yourself when you don’t feel like it, and stop shouldering the blame for things you had no control over.” His voice mellowed, here. The stern set of his mouth softened. “Take a deep breath and just do your best as usual. We’ll have a talk later, once this is all over.”

Both of Steve’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline. He’d honestly thought Hawkeye was just trying to be welcoming, easing Steve into their dynamics. But it made sense. No way he could be that relaxed and easygoing after what he’d gone through with Loki. For being able to fool Steve so easily, Clint had to be a master actor, that was for sure. Not even Natalia had such an impenetrable facade as him.

Clint sagged a bit further with each one of Bucky’s words, like a pierced ball expelling air.

“Thanks man. Add pizza to it, and I might just take you up on that offer to talk.”

Bucky shrugged.

“Wasn’t really a suggestion, pal. But pizza can be arranged.”

Natalia swept both men up in a fond look, a smile in her eyes, even if not on her mouth. And speaking of Natalia--

“… _Tash?_ ” Steve questioned. “I thought your name was Natalia?”

Natalia pierced him with a look that threatened the pain of disembowelment, and Steve balked a bit before glaring right back at her, completely ignoring Bucky’s exasperated “here they go again” behind him. In the end, it was Clint who broke the tension by answering:

“She goes by Natasha. Nat, Tash, Tasha, Widow, all the ridiculous things Tony comes up with… they’re all good. But only person in the universe allowed to call her Natalia is Bucky. Fair warning, man,” even as he vaulted back onto the pilot seat with an acrobatic leap. He pushed a few keys in quick succession and hummed low in his throat. “Judging by the Quinjet hightailing it away from the Tower, Iron Man’s managed to get his people to safety.”

“My money’s on Pepper starting an evacuation way before Tony even left the Helicarrier,” Bucky answered, bracing his metal arm against the cockpit entrance.

“And then leaving last on the Quinjet with Rhodes. Typical Pepper,” Natalia… _Natasha_ commented, slipping under his arm and going to push some buttons of her own on the console. “ETA is 10 minutes. Gentlemen, I suggest you get ready. The show’s about to begin.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**


	13. Chapter 13 - All I want is to fly with you (All I want is to fall with you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bucky Barnes, don’t you _dare_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up skipping a week, like I was afraid of. Sorry for the wait! Hope you'll like how the Battle of New York goes...

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 13:**  All I want is to fly with you (All I want is to fall with you)

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 3815.

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warning:**

**Summary:**

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  
  


**T** hey reached the Tower right on time to see Tony freefall from the top floor, which right about gave Bucky an aneurysm.

About one heartbeat or two before he splattered on the sidewalk like a gnat on a windshield, the pieces of the Iron Man suit reached Tony and enveloped him. Even Natasha slumped in visible relief when she saw him spiralling back up to the top of Tower.

“THANKS FOR THE HELP,” Tony groused through the comms, putting an extreme amount of sarcasm on the word “help”. “Truly feeling the love, here. What the hell took you so long, did you stop at a drive-thru?” His voice was coming from somewhere around Bucky’s chest instead than Steve’s wristband this time, which begged the question of how many bugs he’d infested all their suits with.

“You managed perfectly well on your own, Junior,” Bucky answered the air. “Status report?”

“Blasted Loki on his ass and got defenestrated for the effort. I think my penthouse rug got burned beyond hope, but--”

Before he could add more, a beam of blue light shot from the Tower’s roof, spearing through the sky. Steve felt the shock pass by his face, and involuntary clenched his fists on the back of the pilot’s seat. He _knew_ that light. He’d seen it before. Inside the _Valkyrie._

As if the image had been plucked from his own memories, the energy in the air began to twirl, twine, twist, angry coils of light moving furiously on and against each other, like vipers in their nest. Then, with a noiseless shockwave that almost knocked them all off their feet, a rip burst open in the sky, like fabric tearing under too-much strain. On the other side of the rip was a bubbling, crawling mass of darkness, so thick it looked almost oily.

“Oh, shi--”

Iron Man had barely enough time to circle around the Tower to its roof, that the darkness resolved itself into an horde of alien creatures. They burst out from the rip in a tide that almost knocked him over. Even the Quinjet had to swerve quickly in order not to be swept over.

Clint made the Quinjet move like a living thing almost: it glided, like a bird, spun and dove and rose again. When it stabilized, both Bucky and Natasha had taken command of a cannon gun, and were releasing a stream of fire on the creatures. They looked faintly reptilian, a Giger-ian mixture of organic tissue and mechanical parts. They moved fast. And they _healed_ fast, too.

“Aim for the head!” Steve commanded when he saw an alien lose an arm and stop bleeding a moment after.

Natasha didn’t immediately obey, but Bucky did. It was impossible to get all of the aliens in the head, what with their numbers and speed, and not in the least aided by the complicated convolutions of the Quinjet. But those that Bucky _did_ hit started to drop like flies and didn’t get up. Natasha lit up with a smile.

“It’s work--”

“INCOMING!” Clint yelled, not a moment too soon.

A beam of blue energy hit the Quinjet dead on, one wing disintegrating entirely under the attack. The jet went spinning, half of it on fire, air whooshing inside the cockpit with the power of a roaring tide.

Natasha and Clint barely clung on to their seats, while Bucky threw an arm around an affronted Steve’s waist. He twirled and knelt down, pressing Steve against the wall and covering him with his own body, and got covered by the shield in turn.

The fall was a bumpy, breathless spiral of terror.

_It was the Valkyrie all over again._

Steve’s pulse throbbed, adrenaline spiked. Throat dry, he held onto Bucky and wasn’t sure if the thought of falling to their death together was its own sort of consolation, or if it was honing the terror into an ever sharper blade, something bitter and polluted with frustrated anger.

The crash, when it came, was nothing like Steve had expected.

Clint had slowed their fall by bumping against the empty Tower and hooking their remaining wing through its side, using it as a brake. The landing wasn’t soft by any means, but they all came out of it in one piece.

This time, it was Steve who hooked an arm around Bucky’s waist and all but carried him down the ramp and into the sunlight as fast as his feet allowed him. He was torn aside by the contrasting urges to push Bucky away to check him all over, and to pull him so deep into his chest he might sink under his bones and become part of him. He barely managed to restrain himself, one hand cupping Bucky’s cheek briefly and then darting away.

“Natasha!” he barked, barely looking away from Bucky and his kind, knowing smile. “Hawkeye! Status report! Are you hurt?”

“All pieces attached to their right socket and functioning!” Clint yelled, rolling out of the Quinjet after him. “ _Tash?_ ” he called out tensely.

“Here,” she called from on top of a nearby heap of rubble. She was squinting through the smoke towards the Tower. “Thor’s back!” she called, ponting at the lighting bolts coalescing from the roof and zig-zagging through the horde. “He’s engaging the aliens, too.”

“What about Tony?” Bucky called, looking around frantically until he spotted the speckle of red and gold weaving through the air. “JARVIS?”

“Sir is in fine condition,” the AI answered, and had the decency to do it from the proper comm link in their ears. “And isn’t taking excessive risks, Master James.”

“Define excessive,” Bucky muttered.

“Comparing his behaviour today with his usual pattern, he is restraining himself to a 23%--”

Something pushed through the portal. Something big enough to make the Helicarrier pale in comparison. An assault craft, metal plated but also undoubtedly _alive_. The massive beast hurled overhead, diving like a whale, crashing into buildings, bellowing like the damned. And carrying hundreds of aliens soldiers.

Immediately, Iron Man flew after it in purse, needling it with missiles, which prompted Jarvis to amend his earlier statement.

“--78% chance of death or permanent damage.”

“ _Oh, for the love of--_ ” Bucky swore, grabbing a rifle from the harness on his back. “What’s the plan, Captain?”

Steve cast a quick glance around.

“Our ultimate goal is the Tower. Thor’s lightning is slowing the flood of creature. Let’s hope that’ll work until we find out how to cut off the power to that portal. Hawkeye, Buck-- I need you to cover the streets from above. Drop down as many aliens as you can, and open us a path. Just stay clear of that monster carrier up there - the last thing we need is it falling on our heads. Iron Man? I assume you can hear me?” He asked his wristband.

“You assume right, Capsicle,” Tony answered… straight from the pin on Natasha’s collar.

“Stark, you stop playing chase with the monster carrier and fold back _right now_.” Tony began to grumble, but Steve cut him off. “I can see the authorities are setting up a perimeter--” he glanced to the debris and upturned cars blocking the streets. “--but you are the only one who can hope to work it. Anything gets more than three blocks out from the 39th, you turn it back or you turn it to ashes. Got it?”

“That’s doable. What about Brucie?”

“Banner’s here?”

“He will be.”

The conviction in his tone made Steve pause.

“Then you tell him to concentrate on the carrier and to help you with the perimeter,” he ordered. “Natasha, I suppose you’re more comfortable in melee combat?” She nodded curtly. “You’re with me, then. We reach Thor at the Tower, and put a wrench in Loki’s plan. Top priority isn’t engaging the aliens, but helping the civilians. All clear?”

“Just one thing,” Bucky said suddenly, and seized Steve around the waist. Turning him around he planted a fond, lingering kiss on Steve’s unprepared mouth, drawing him closer to his chest, surprising him with the desperate tenderness of his lips.

When they parted for air, Steve’s heart was pounding, and a glance at Bucky’s face, the intensity painted all over it, sent bubbles to his head.

“Bu… Bucky, what… ?”

“I love you,” Bucky told Steve for the very first time, with a fondness in his eyes so sharp that it made Steve feel like he was bleeding. “Just remember,” Bucky murmured. “ _I love you._ ”

Steve sucked in a startled breath, a cloying sort of ache gushing behind his ribcage.

“Bucky Barnes, don’t _you dare_ ,” he swore, fingers grappling helplessly for a hold on Bucky’s chest, fingers slipping against the leather of his jacket. “Don’t you dare telling me goodbye. I won’t let _anything_ take you away from me, you hear me?”

“It’s not goodbye,” Bucky swore even as he stepped back and away. “I’m just not taking chances. Last time we went on a mission together, I let you go without saying it, and it’s remained with me for too many years, festering like a wound. I just need you to know Steve. Whatever happens, today or tomorrow, or in a millions years from now. I love you. ‘Till the End of the Line.”

He stepped back, cracking his neck. The collar of his jacket stiffened in response to the sharp motion, tightening around the column of his throat like a choker. Black wings extended from the sides and slithered around his jaw to cup his face, forming the muzzle Steve saw on his first day in this century.

With a last, lingering look, Bucky turned and left before Steve could fathom a reply.

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  
  


**B** anner arrived, like Tony had known he would. He arrived on a rusty old bike, and took the time to park it neatly - almost _incongruously_ \- in the middle of the chaos. He held his arms out to the sky, expectant, like a kid. A moment after, Iron Man swept down like a homing missile, caught Banner around the waist and then dropped him, like the ticking bomb that he was, onto the alien carrier craft.

Banner unleashed the Hulk mid-fall.

And the green giant might’ve been a speck compared to the alien beast, but his strength knew no rival.

Bellowing in savage delight, the Hulk pounced on the whale-like thing, and began to play with it like a child with his toy, Iron Man hooting in glee as he circled overhead.

Steve and Natasha made their way towards the Tower. Singularly in tune, they slashed through the waves of alien creatures the way a hot blade would slide through butter. At one point, Thor slammed to land right behind them with a tremendous quake, and his battle cry burned itself right into their souls, like a brand. He brandished his hammer and summoned a choir of lightning bolts, laughing out loud, electricity shivering along his skin, lending the shine of supernovas to his wide eyes.

Clint was amazing beyond belief, accurate and fast and seemingly everywhere at once, his arrows raining down with deadly precision wherever they needed them, exactly when they needed them. But the best thing, the most glorious thing for Steve, was having Bucky at his back, like six months ago and seventy years ago and a lifetime and a beat of his heart.

It was exhilarating, having this deadly Guardian Angel casting his looming shadow over him. Unseen bullets whizzed past Steve, the aliens dropping left and right, left and right, parting like the sea in front of him.

Steve reached an intersection, Natasha hot on his heels, and pivoted to salute Bucky when the aliens who rushed them fell into quick succession, a burning hole in their foreheads, phew, phew, phew. He was turning back around, bouncing his shield on his arm, when.

When.

One of the aliens crashed against the building Bucky was standing on.

And Bucky.

Bucky _fell._

He fell like a dead body would fall. Fell in the rushing wind, fell in the crawling chaos, disappearing into it, swallowed by the monster horde.

Steve’s breathing stuttered, vision tunneling, heart bursting. For a moment, it was like he had been turned blind, like that damned, _damned_ snow was _still_ whipping in front of him, seventy years later, and there it was, still clawing at his eyes, erasing everything, erasing the only thing that mattered, erasing _Bucky_ \- from view, from Steve’s life. The wind was a howling crescendo in his ears, something like a cackle, like a scream, like the rattling of blood-rust rails as a train speeded past. Fingers of ice gripped his heart, froze it solid. Red began to seep through the white in front of Steve’s eyes, like blood dripping into milk, a cloud that just spread and spread and--

Steve came back to himself with Natasha arms around his neck, cutting off his air supply. Her legs braced under his armpits, her weight on his back pulling him off balance, and she was yelling: “--back to yourself, Rogers! He’s fine! If you’d just _look,_ you stupid man! Bucky’s fine!”

Her hands clawed at his cheeks, nails hooking around his eyes, wrenching his head up and around and-

…oh.

_Oh._

His body was nothing but a speck in the distance, but that was _Bucky_. Back on his feet, wielding a blue-ray rifle and scything down aliens like a vengeful God.

The air that Steve was gasping in felt like knives in his throat. His chest was constricted, his temples pounded a rhythm of pure agony. At the mere sight of Bucky, relief bloomed through him, a perfect drop of pure light that sent waves rolling across the whole of him.

Natasha must’ve noticed he’d come back online, because she dropped off his back and stepped away from him, wiping dark ichor and soft dripping bits from her cheek and hair.

“You’re back?” she asked him warily.

Steve took a fortifying breath and nodded, unable to find his voice.

Even at a glance, he could see the destruction he’d wrecked in his fugue. He’d be trying to reach Bucky, perhaps. To save him. Or at least hold his corpse. Like he hadn’t been able to a lifetime before. He didn’t know. He _didn’t know_. He’d ran metres in seconds without being aware of anything. Aliens laid scattered everywhere in pools of sticky dark fluid, like leaves stripped from their branches and tossed by the fury of an hurricane. He felt queasy to the stomach.

Natasha nodded sharply back at him, then gestured towards a crashed car one street over.

“Your shield is there,” she explained, moving her neck briskly in the car’s direction. “There was a family in danger and even if you weren’t all _there_ , you still managed to toss it and save…” she trailed off, pushing her lips into a thin, white line.

Steve gave another wordless nod and began to jog towards the car.

“You…” Natasha called out, arresting his steps. “You,” she said again, softer this time, her tone incredulous. She gathered her thoughts for a moment, struggling visibly for words. “You must really love him,” she settled for in the end, with a tremor born of awe in her reedy voice.

She was looking at him now with eyes transformed, the quick mind behind them working overtime to finally fit Steve into a box she could understand. It was almost as if blood and love were wound so deeply and so intricately together for her, that she couldn’t fathom a more honest declaration of his intent than this frenzy of violence, this madness of grief that had taken him out of his own body. She was looking at him approvingly, in a way.

Steve swallowed until his stinging throat was moist enough to produce sound.

“ _More than life itself,_ ” he croaked.

He waited for her acknowledging nod, unsettled by the look of wonder she was giving him. Jogging over to the car, he took a moment for himself, doubling over to pant out a few aching, wet breaths, hands braced on his knees.

Bucky had fallen.

Bucky was alive.

And again, Steve had done nothing to save him.

His breath hitched, and Steve swallowed down another wave of nausea.

A little child poked his head out of the car’s shattered rear window, wordlessly handing him his shield. Steve took it gingerly, still gulping down air like it was water. With a nod to the child, he secured it back to his arm, then turned towards the parents. His voice was surprisingly calm when he directed them towards a nearby building for cover. With one last lingering look at the family, he ran back to where Natasha was still waiting, still looking at him with turmoil in her eyes.

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  
  


**W** hat would later be known as “the Battle of New York” ended shortly after that. With Thor bottlenecking the portal, Clint, Bucky, Iron Man and Hulk clearing the way, Natasha and Steve managed to reach Stark Tower somewhat unscathed. By then, army tanks, humvees and planes had engaged the battle, and the containment was going better than they could have ever hoped for.

The most urgent matter now was closing the portal. Which is why Natasha commandeered one of the smaller alien chariots and flew it up to the Tower’s rooftop. Hulk followed her there, taking care of Loki as she fiddled with the machine powered by the Tesseract’s energy.

They had a chance.

The honestly had a fighting chance!

Dr Selvig, one of the Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. scientists who’d been enslaved to Loki’s will was now in control of his faculties once more, and he could--

“--close the portal, if you can get me the sceptre,” he told Natasha, eyeing the weapon where it lay on a lower platform, lost after Hulk had knocked Loki out. It was easy for her to lower herself into the platform, retrieve the sceptre and climb back to the machine. Selvig was punching keys frantically on his laptop, and barked at her to _carefully_ slip the sceptre _through_ the force field surrounding the machine until the tip came into contact with the Tesseract.

Natasha nodded tersely.

“Anyone can hear me?” she called, knowing one of Tony’s several bugs would catch her voice and rely it to the other Avengers. “I can close the portal! I repeat, I can close the portal!”

“Do it!” Steve and Bucky ordered from the comms, voices mingling as one.

“Nope, nopity, nope, not yet Spider Girl!” Tony interrupted.

“Stark!” Steve shouted, at the same time as Bucky called: “Tony?”

“Those things are _still_ coming through,” Steve continued. “We _need_ to close the portal, _now_.”

“Yeah, well, I have a bit of friendly fire to deal with, Capsicle.”

“Friendly fire?”

“Yeah, no biggie, the Council just, like, launched a _missile_ over the city.”

“They actually ordered a nuclear strike?” Bucky growled, just as Clint yelped a soulful: “HOLY SHIT.”

“Yeah, like I said, no biggie. Think you can keep the hole in the sky open a while longer for me, Spiderling?”

“Don’t. Call. Me. Spiderling.” Natasha ordered through clenched teeth, straining to keep the sceptre inside the force field. Sweat was running down the sides of her face. Her heart was thudding near painfully against her ribcage, and she could feel electricity sparkling against her fingertips, numbing them. “I can give you two minutes at most!”

“I’ll be done with one minute to spare!” Tony promised.

And he was.

He whizzed past the Tower not ten seconds after, holding onto the missile, guiding it as best as he could in the direction of the portal. Natasha had barely enough time to call his name, that Tony had already disappeared beyond the portal. A burst of static in their commlinks. And then a silence deeper than the absence of sound. A void that was a sound in and of itself, followed by a rough, low: “Tony?” a cracked thing that grew in volume as the name was repeated, over and over, “Tony? Tony! TONY!!”, a chant that Natasha found herself mouthing silently along, eyes blown wide and stuck to the portal. She held them open and unblinking until they filled with a sheen of moisture, and even then, fighting against the acid in her eyes, she kept them open, wide open, until--

Tony fell out of the portal. Communications restored themselves with a thunder-like crackle. JARVIS connected them all with a series of blips. Breathless, Natasha trust the sceptre all the way through, burning tears forced out of the corner of her eyes as she scrunched her lids shut, a yell ripping out of her throat.

The portal closed. Noiselessly, but sending out a shockwave that made her drop hard on her knees. Disoriented, she crawled to the edge of the roof and peered down before the ringing in her brain let her remember what she was looking for. All around, the alien warriors and their enormous carriers start to shake, keel over, and fall.

Fall.

Tony was still falling.

“Oh, God.”

_He was still falling._

“Someone catch him!” she ordered, or Bucky did, or maybe that was Steve.

Natasha watched in frozen horror as Tony plummeted closer and closer to the ground, lifeless, like a discarded toy. Air wooshed out of her lungs when Hulk burst out of seemingly nowhere and caught Tony, cocooning his huge green body around the armour, shielding Tony from impact.

It would only be much, much later that she heard of how Thor wrenched the faceplate off Iron Man’s mask. How Bucky tried frantic chest compressions. How in the end it was a roar from the Hulk that shocked Tony back to life, which later on would spur Tony into a whining fest of “YOU HAD ME IN YOUR LAP BRUCIE, YOU COULD’VE KISSED ME AT ANY POINT NOW THINK OF THE SNOW WHITE AESTHETIC AND WEEP FOR THE MISSED CHANCE” that lasted _months_.

For the moment, she just cupped her hands around her face and breathed deeply into her palms, listening helplessly through the comms as they tried to wake him up for several endless seconds without success.

It was only when Tony spoke at last, indignant like the spoiled child she often accused him to be, that she allowed herself to let go, allowed all the tension and fear and adrenaline to leave her body. She collapsed, breathless, on her back, gazing up at the clouds drifting through the unblemished sky.

They had won.

The Avengers had _won._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~End of Part 2**

**TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SSSSOOOooo... part 2 is over. But there's still much to say, so see you next week or so?


	14. Chapter 14 - Interlude 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who the Hell was the Winter Soldier?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late, late, I'm late with posting!! Sorry, the last few weeks have been HECTIC, and now I'm stranded somewhere with limited internet connection and traffic D:  
> We're nearing the end, though!  
> I had half a plan to rewrite the entirety of the Winter Soldier movie in this verse, but I opted for something else, picking one thing from the comics and going from there. Hope you'll like! ;D

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 14:** Interlude 3

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 2725

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warning:**

**Summary:**

  
  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  
  


**T** here was a stillness in the air, just like there would be after a potent thunderstorm. A sort of fizzling charge, a ghost pressure shivering along the skin.

Steve felt a little thunderstruck himself, as he stood at the bottom of the Tower, right were Iron Man and Hulk had fallen. He could feel his heart pound inside his skull; his muscles ached. His mouth, it felt like it was filled with cotton.

As soon as saw Bucky, his mind emptied itself. The world faded.

His heart did an acrobatic feat in his chest, and before he knew it he’d closed the distance between them and slammed Bucky against a nearby wall.

Steve wasn’t _hugging_ him, exactly. He was just covering the whole of Bucky’s body with his own, _feeling_ the whole of Bucky’s body with his own, pressing every desperate inch of himself against Bucky, as if the particles of them could mingle together through touch, and make them into one.

Things happened around them - Natasha walked out of the Tower escorting a traumatised scientist. Thor stood up from his crouch next to Iron Man, looking singed and heartbroken. His hammer was nowhere to be seen. The Hulk crumpled onto himself like a crying child and shrunk faster than the eye can blink into Dr Banner. Tony pawed at him from where he still lay on the ground, and Banner silently crawled over, gently pulling Tony until the man’s head rested in his lap. Hawkeye dropped down from a ledge, and passed Banner a water bottle that he used to gently wet Tony’s face and his cracked lips.

And still, through it all, Steve clung to Bucky, shielding him from the world, keeping him where he belonged: into Steve’s chest. Into his heart. His soul.

Gently, Bucky cradled the back of Steve’s bowed head, pressed his mouth to the golden crown for a long moment, thumbs stroking gently at the edges of Steve’s jaw.

“Hey, there, darling,” he crooned lovingly. “You gone all clingy on me. Missed ma ugly mutt, have ya?”

“You’re such a _jerk_ ,” Steve murmured in the sweaty crook of Bucky’s neck.

“For some teasing?” Bucky leaned back and brushed his lips along Steve’s temple, gentle and sweet. “I missed you too, you know? All several long minutes of _this_. Missed you like crazy.”

Steve laughed, or sobbed, or chocked on a mixture of both. Dear Lord above, but he was in love with the most magnificent sap on God’s green Earth.

“You _fell,_ ” Steve answered breathlessly. He realised quite suddenly that his hands were shaking. He nestled impossibly closer, lips settling at the hollow of Bucky’s neck, tracking the pulsing melody of his beating heart. “You goddamn idiot, I watched you _fall._ ”

Bucky’s hand stilled where it was carding through Steve’s hair.

“…I _did?_ ” Then, after a lightbulb moment: “Oh! _Oh._ Uh… I guess I did.”

Steve squeezed him, nestled even closer, defying every law of physics known to man. _He’d been carved from Bucky’s rib, and he wanted to return there_ , he thought madly. He was Bucky’s and Bucky was his. For always.

“No guessing about it, you _fell_.” A knot of emotion rose in his throat, choking him. “ _You fell._ ”

“But I’m here now.”

“Be glad you are! I would’ve come after you otherwise,” Steve swore. He felt Bucky turn into stone under his fingers and lips, and so he pressed on: “Stolen you right back out of God’s hands, dragged you back to my side where you belong.”

Bucky’s muscles unlocked, and he gave a strangled laugh.

“Not quite sure God’s is the neighborhood I’d end in, but I know what you mean.” Gently, he nudged Steve into lifting his head. “There you are,” he breathed out when their eyes met, all the sweetness in the world held in his tone. He smoothed a thumb down Steve’s cheek, kissed him soft and long at the corner of his eye, that vulnerable spot where tears and sweat were mingled. “Can I kiss you?” Bucky asked in a murmur, “I know we’re out in the open and there are people around, but--”

Steve cut him off, kissing him ravenously. Kissing him with mouth and tongue and teeth. Kissing him with all his body, straining closer, mussing Bucky’s hair with his fingers, clutching his biceps, slotting their hips together like puzle pieces. Bucky’s noise of surprise quickly turned into a moan, then a growl, and when Steve pushed again, Bucky let himself be hoisted up against the wall, wrapping both legs around Steve’s waist for balance, and kissing back like a man drowning.

Tony was still too out of there to catcall, so they got a few minutes to indulge, drinking each other in, relishing, luxuriating, celebrating that they were both alive.

They had no way of knowing it at the time, but pictures of them kissing were already circulating the internet, generating notes and brewing conspirations.

“ARE YOU TWO DONE, I’VE BEEN A GOOD BOY I WANT SHAWARMA NOW!!” Tony called from where he was lying half on the ground and half on Bruce’s lap.

“And I want you to swing by medical, Tony!” Bucky called back over the top of Steve’s head, voice coming out rough between hot puffs of breath.

“Pffffffffffffffffftttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt, I’m _fine!_ Who needs doctors anyway?”

“You do, Stark,” Bruce murmured from above him, all concern.

“No other doctor than you,” Tony swore loyally, which made Bruce roll his eyes.

“I’m not even that kind of doctor, and we need to know if you broke anything.”

“I’m fine.”

“You can’t know for sure.”

“Sure I can! I just said it. I’m fine.”

“We all need to get a check-up, and you’re going first, that’s non-negotiable.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’mfineimfineimfineimfin- _OUCH!_ ”

“There. That doesn’t sound like “fine”, does it now?”

“You hit me!” Tony sounded scandalised.

“I poked you,” Bruce retorted. “It’s the bruising and possible internal bleeding that made it hurt out of scale.”

“I’m calling marital abuse!” Tony groused with a pout. Bruce startled.

“Marit-- Tony, did you hit your head?” he asked urgently, pulling down Tony’s lower eyelid and moving a finger in front of his face to check his reactions. “We’re not married. You’re not married. You’re not. We’re. We’re _not_ married,” he babbled.

“Don’t mind what he’s saying, he’s concussed,” Natasha intersected smoothly. And then, after a beat: “He was dropped as a child.”

For the records, Tony tried his best to get up and into Natasha’s face. But it turned out that Bruce Banner was possessed of an incredible strength even when he wasn’t green and mountain-huge (or maybe Tony _really_ was more affected by the fall that he wanted to admit, who knows?). So he just flopped back into Bruce’s lap in a slump, pouting and posing dramatically like a perfect Greta Garbo.

Luckily for them all, JARVIS is perfection made from code, so he’d already used the suit’s internal sistem to check on Tony’s status. The bugs scattered all over the suits of the other Avengers allowed him to have a look at the rest of them, too. Quinjets had been deployed, transporting medical operators; the Tower’s own medi-bay was already opened to anyone requiring assistance, and every hospital and clinic in a several kilometres radius had been alerted.

Thor wrenched Tony out of the suit with his bare hands, “Just like a herring from its can!” as Tony commented, with disproportioned delight for someone who was being picked up like a toddler.

He tottered back to Bruce, unsteady like a newborn colt. He faceplanted into the middle of Bruce’s chest before noticing that _hello there, nipples!_ He went into chivalrous mode and stripped off his own shirt, talking one mile a minute until Bruce agreed to wear it, a bemused little smile playing around his lips.

Obviously, Tony then proceeded to whine about being coooo~oold, and tried to pawn the jacket off Bucky, who seemed to be seriously contemplating to just strip right then and there, if only to put a stop to Tony’s whining. A booming laugh startled everyone, and then Thor was giving Tony his own cape to wear, and that was that.

By then, the Quinjets had arrived, the military had gathered round the ruined Tower and an emergency medical point had been established right there in the lobby.

Bruce all but marched Tony to the nearest doctor, sat him down on a chair, and stood chewing his bottom lip until Tony was deemed healthy enough to leave under his own power. Bruce refused to get a check up himself - as did Steve, Bucky and Thor, who were already healing due to their superior physiology - and gently nudged Clint to sit and let himself be examined.

When it was her turn, Natasha grumbled, but was basically frog-marched to the doctor’s chair by both Bucky _and_ Clint. It turned out she only had some bruising - if by “only some bruising” you mean “extensive patches of it, purple-black in colour, accompanied by severe swelling and pain”. She made sure to stomp on Clint’s foot and hip-check Bucky out of the way as she marched off and out of the Tower.

Outside, there was chaos.

Rubble littered the streets, thick black smoke puffed out of the ruins, wormed through the streets in a flood. Ash and dust swirled slowly in the air, coating the back of the tongue, the nostrils, the throat. It was hard to breathe. Hard to stare at it all and not feel a film of tears coat your eyes.

Barely one step out of the Tower, and Bucky was rushing to help a policeman who was trudging along a young woman in a faint.

Without a word, they all scattered to help.

Steve and Thor helped clear the streets of the husks of crashed vehicles. Bruce turned out to be pretty good with kids, his big calloused hands and soothing voice working like a charm. Clint began to clean about, scavenging food, blankets and drinks from who knows were, while Natasha helped escorting the shocked people to the doctors. Tony… well, Tony mostly stuck to Bruce, threw (metaphorical) money around, making calls that speeded up just about every process that could be speeded up, buying whatever couldn’t be speeded up, bribing, coaxing, lending his Tower and his resources, summoning a scatter of automated suits to clean the street and to transport the wounded. He still insisted he was doing nothing, just soaking up Bruce’s “healing vibe” to himself through constant touch. Bruce just stuck a lollipop into Tony’s open mouth to shut him up, and focused back on the kids, strangely comforted by the weight of the human-shaped blanket plastered to his back.

It was tiring, gruesome work, and they were exhausted, the lot of them. But none of them ever thought about giving up, stopping, getting some rest. They gave and gave and gave, helped and helped and helped, soothed and moved and cared for, for hours on end, until twilight fell upon them, and then the deep, dark night.

At one point Steve straightened up, his back crackling like brittle wood, and saw that most of the area was clear. A nearby nurse murmured at him to just go, and at about the same moment he heard Tony’s mournful cry of “I was promised shawarmaaaa~”.

Natasha huffed and hawed for a while, but ultimately set out at a brisk march, commanding the others to follow. She led the way away from the attack zone, and they marched on in silence, ghosts in the night, until they reached an area where the buildings were just a little singed, and debris was sprinkled around rather than piling-up into mounds. Tucked into a corner, there was a little, dark shop that exhaled the mouth-watering scent of roasted meat.

Tony made a giddy sound and skipped ahead, squirming inside the shop through the ruined glass door. There had clearly been a fire inside, and cement and glass crunched underfoot as he scampered in, but the building seemed sound enough. A moment after he poked his head back out of the door, gave a thumb up and ducked back inside, already asking the owner if he could “pretty please have everything on the menu, and if that wasn’t possible, could he please buy the shop and _then_ have everything on _his_ menu?”.

Half in a stupor, Steve followed after the other Avengers as they ducked inside the splintered glass doors. He’d already reached the grease-spotted counter before he noticed that Bucky wasn’t by his side anymore. He hurried back out, heart in his mouth, and saw him standing forlornly in the middle of the street. His shoulders were dropped low, his eyes downcast, his hands held limp and lifeless by his sides. He stood like a monument of sadness in the ruined landscape. Natasha was pressed into his side, shifting her weight nervously, eyes fluttering about, looking unsure for the first time since Steve had met her.

“Buck?” he called, and watched as some life returned to the statue. Bucky’s head shifted barely enough to met Steve’s eyes, and his mouth arranged itself into a broken little smile.

“Go ahead and have some dinner, Steve. You must be famished.” He nudged Natasha forward, but she held back, stubborness in every line of her beautiful face.

“What about you?” Steve asked back.

Bucky hesitated a moment, then shook his head, hair swaying around his cheeks.

“I’m not… hungry.”

“ _We_ will just wait here,” Natasha said archly, squaring her shoulders and sticking her chin out. “Go on ahead.”

Bucky heaved a gusty sigh.

“молодой паук…” he began, but she shook her head.

“Not budging, _Soldat._ ”

Before he could answer, a woman walked out of the shop. She had brown, leathery skin like an old tree’s bark, and her back was twisted so low that a child of ten would be taller than her. She walked briskly up to Bucky and Natasha, stomping without a care or worry over the debris, and eyed them both pensively for a minute. Her eyes were like chips of obsidian, black and fathomless. Her wrinkled, unsmiling mouth looked like it had been etched on her face at knife point.

“You the Winter Soldier, yes?” she asked in a dry, cut-edge voice. “And you his _Vdova_?”

They both stiffened, but Bucky recovered first, slowly holding out his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“Rest assured Ma’am, we weren’t about to enter your shop.”

“Why _not_?” She demanded in her gravel-like voice. “It’s a good shop.”

Bucky seemed genuinely throw, and even Natasha’s eyes looked huge.

“We’ve heard good things about it. That’s why we brought our friends here,” she assured after a moment’s uncertainty, but the woman kept her gaze on Bucky.

“And yet you keep out?” she snapped.

“You’d want _the likes of us…?_ ” Natasha began, her tone incredulous. The woman’s eyes cut towards her, forcing her to trail off.

“You ask if I’d want the people who fought for my city in my shop? Well yes, young thing, I’d very much _want._ ”

“Ma’am,” Bucky protested, looking dazed. “You must know we’re…”

“Making other customers wait,” she scolded, dry and gruff. “Hasten up.”

When Bucky kept floundering, the woman began to reach out, slowly, telegraphing her movements like you might do with a small, scared animal. She curled a hand around his wrist, tugging gently. Helpless, Bucky took a step, then another, Natasha matching him step by step like a steady shadow.

“I know all about you,” the woman crooned, her voice like wind rustling through trees. “Come put something warm and spicy in your belly, soldier. Let the Winter fall from your bones, and come inside to feast. Me and mine are safe today because of you. Rest assured of your welcome.”

The woman led Bucky and Natasha past Steve, into the cool, dusty interior of the shop. Steve lingered in the cold night a moment more, perplexed.

“…who the hell is the Winter Soldier?” he asked.

Nothing but the wind answered him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**~End of Interlude 3~**

**TBC**


	15. Chapter 15 - Within these walls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is unutterably late, but in my defence, typing this on my smartphone was a real challenge. You have no idea the hilarious stuff autocorrect would come up with as I typed. Truly.  
> I'm also out of town and with no private connection, so I might not be able to update this weekly. Maybe biweekly, though. That sounds about good.  
> We're officially entered the last part of the story! (I've also run out of lyrics for the titles, as you maybe could guess xD). A few chapters left, maybe a small epilogue, too. I really like playing around in this 'verse, so I might add more stories in the "I hear that we're married, sweetheart" series after "Rewrite the Stars" is officially over.  
> Thank you all for your support! It meant a lot to me that you like my little story so much! :D *hands flowers and cookies to everyone*

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars - Within these walls.

**Chapter 15:**

**Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

**Chapter Word Count:**

**Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and one-sided/pre/ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

**Warning:**

**Summary:**

 

≡ ☆ ≡

 

 **S** hawarma, it turned out, were thin slices of roasted meat, spicy and greasy, stuffed inside warm, toasted flatbread, topped with vegetables and drizzled with sauces.

Steve was, honestly, way too famished to taste the first three, but by the fourth he realized that he really, really liked the explosion of taste coating his mouth. Despite how famished he was, all of a sudden he was also very, very _tired_. His limbs seemed to be made out of lead, heavy beyond comparison. He began to eat more and more slowly; never quite stopping, but picking idly at his plate, chewing methodically, pausing in-between bites to get lost somewhere inside his own head for endless minutes.

None of the other Avengers fared better. Bucky sat next to Steve, their bodies touching from knee to shoulder, ankles hooked together. He was slouching in that effortlessly graceful way of his, more jungle cat than man. His head lay abandoned in the cradle of Steve’s neck as he picked the smallest morsels from his wraps and chewed them soundlessly, eyes distant and clear like crystals.

Natasha sat opposite from Steve, looking like nothing but sheer willpower alone was keeping her back straight and her chin up. Steve had no proof, but he thought that she had at least one foot pressed to one of Bucky’s, using touch to anchor herself to the here and now. Clint was bent almost double over his plate, chin and fingers coated in oil. He’d eaten his share and most of Natasha’s too, so fast that a lesser man would’ve choked. And yet he was so incredibly silent thorough, that Steve felt surprised to see him there every time he turned his head.

Thor was the most energetic of the lot, and he kept ordering more and more shawarma, shovelling the wraps down his throat almost whole and washing them down with what looked like gallons of beer. All in all, he looked like he was eating neither for pleasure nor need, but was manically replenishing his energy in preparation for another battle. At times, he looked like eating itself was a battle. Like he didn’t want - could even _afford_ \- to stop moving and start _thinking_ about what had happened.

Bruce and Tony were curled together like puppies, Bruce tiredly rummaging for crumbles inside Tony’s plate as the other man shamelessly used him as a body-pillow. Steve had no doubt that Tony was also touching Bucky: Tony lay nestled sideways in his chair, and in the flickering light of the lone naked bulb that had survived, Steve could see his feet planted proprietarily on Bucky’s lap.

The lot of them remained in the shop for hours, long after the food was gone. By the time the sun was dawning again on the ruined city, Clint had his face hidden in his crossed arms. Thor, for his part, had finally stilled into a state that was closer to shock than repose. Tony would sleep for a minute or two, then startle awake with a gasp. Bruce, drowsy himself, just curled one arm around him and pulled him closer, allowing him some precious rest.

Natasha was slouching in her chair, and at one point Steve couldn’t quite remember, she’d hooked both her ankles with Bucky’s, dislodging Steve completely. Steve would’ve protested, but the simple gesture of Bucky reaching out to hold his hand had been enough to stray his tongue. He picked up that hand and kissed the back of it, and when Bucky tilted his head up like an offering he kissed his mouth, too.

They might have settled down to sleep where they sat at the bolted-down table, if Fury hadn’t swept into the shop. He ordered them all back to the Helicarrier, and Tony roused long enough to offer them all to stay at the Tower, instead.

They shuffled up and out of the shop, debris crunching under their feet and dust falling from their hair and shoulders. Steve offered to help clean up, but the young teen at the counter lowered hid phone long enough to wave him off, then went back to his light-fast typing. The woman who’d all but dragged Bucky inside had disappeared in the back hours before, as had most of her children. Everything was quiet and murky and dark, like the bottom of a dry well. The air smelt strongly of dust.

The layer of smoke outside was so thick, it hung like a wool blanket in the sky, turning the grey twilight into something out a horror movie. The skyline was a jagged jaw, its contours stark and menacing. Most building were splintered open, gaping and hollow like old carcasses. Some were tilted at impossible angles. Each one of them, each stone on the ground, each piece of dark-splattered rubble - it felt like a tombstone. It felt like defeat.

Steve’s mind went to distant battlefields, to bombs and fire, and the destruction following in their wake. The world had gone on without him, but here, in the battlefield, he could tell that it really, really hadn’t. There’d always be bullies. There’d always be someone trying to subjugate those who couldn’t protect themselves. There’d always be the need for good men to raise in their defence. The need for good _weapons_.

From wherever his mind had slipped to, he felt Bucky interlacing their fingers together and tugging. Nothing insistent, just a small, careful suggestion. Steve’s body responded as if magnetised, following in Bucky’s wake as if they were one and inseparable.

The Tower didn’t feel more homely this time that the first; but JARVIS’s low, warm: “Welcome, Captain,” washed over Steve like a balm. “It is good to see you have returned safely.”

“Good to be here, JARVIS,” he said, choked with a strange relief, and he almost meant it.

“No stealing my AI,” Tony grumbled halfheartedly at him.

“Not going anywhere, Sir,” JARVIS answered, his voice so tender and human. “Can I perhaps suggest you all get some sleep? I took the liberty to ready a few rooms.”

“Where’s Pep and Rhodey?”

“Asleep in their respective floors, Sir,” said JARVIS and Tony’s face did something strange that wasn’t a smile and wasn’t the scrunched-up grimace that came before tears, either. Steve had heard Tony speak quietly and lightning fast into his comm throughout the day, but he probably ached for more than just the sound of his friends’ voices. “Shall I wake them?” JARVIS queried, ever perceptive.

Tony grumbled a negative, then after a moment’s indecision shuffled out towards his lab. Bruce watched him go in silence, swaying on the spot as if pulled by contrasting urges: the one to follow and the one to stay. He ran a hand through his curls, looking torn for one more heartbeat. Then he went and gently lead Tony to a different elevator, steering him away from more work and towards his rooms, murmuring something sottovoce.

After that, the Avengers dispersed as quickly as their tired bodies would allow, stumbling blindly towards the rest promised by JARVIS’s gentle murmurs. Steve’s hand was still firmly, safely held in Bucky’s, and he let himself be carried towards the elevator, across the hall, and then to the same room, the same _bed_ , they’d been in that first day he woke in the future.

They were both covered in soot and smelled positively rank - the odour of sweat, of smoke, of blood and gunpowder and bodily fluids exhaled like fumes from their clothes and the pores of their skin. Steve failed to answer when Bucky suggested a shower, and just watched drowsily as the other man peeled off his uniform and shook the dust out of his long hair.

Steve didn’t remember Bucky having such an affinity for water, back in the war. Sure, he’d liked to be clean-shaven, and some days even smelled minty and good out in the field, but that was it. Nowadays, he seemed to crave water the way a fish would - he’d live under the showerhead like some sort of water-sprite, if he could. Steve had asked once, about this obsession, but the half-answer he’d got had made him uneasy.

“‘t makes me feel clean, you know? Water,” Bucky had said, eyes shifty and tone careful. “It rinses everything off. The things you don’t want. The things in you that you don’t like. They rush off. For a while. And yeah, you've got to pick them back up again after ‘cause they don’t really go anywhere, but. Then you can wash them off again. And feel clean. Again. Just for a little while.”

Steve had never, ever asked again.

“Come on, Steve,” Bucky was crooning now, startling Steve awake from his stupor. “You’ll feel better once you’ve washed off the stench, I promise,” he added softly, reaching up to unfasten the zips and buttons of Steve’s own uniform.

Steve snorted, and planted his forehead in the curve between Bucky’s neck and shoulder, offering no help whatsoever with getting undressed.

“I’m so tired I’m basically half seas over, Buck” he moaned. “I don’t think a shower will help.”

Bucky clucked his tongue reproachfully.

“You’d be surprised, honey. Come on. Up with you,” he encouraged, picking both of Steve’s hands in his own and pulling. They let gravity do all the work on pulling Steve’s pants down, and he stumbled only a little trying to free his feet with boths hands occupied. He swayed into Bucky’s chest, laughing throatily at his own clumsiness.

They reached the bathroom and climbed into the shower stall with only minimal fumbling. The brief shock of cold water hitting his skin made Steve groan, but it started to feel invigorating soon after. The wet splash against his face felt strangely comforting, and when Bucky slowly, _slowly_ , turned the water from cold to warm, Steve felt himself beginning to relax. The light was low, and there was no other sound but the soft rushing voice of the water cascading all over him, embracing him. He tilted his head up, let it soak his hair, slip into his mouth and down his neck. For a moment, he understood perfectly what Bucky meant about letting go of all the ugliness and feeling truly, really clean.

In silence they lathered their hands and washed each other, and the touch had nothing sexual to it: it was tender and careful, with the kind of empathy reserved for handling the pulsing, warm body of a little bird or something equally fragile.

Clean, tingling and warm all over, Steve tucked himself under Bucky’s chin, snuggled against his beating heart, and let the tension go with a sigh, let his tense muscle liquefy into something weak and tender, let thoughts scatter like fleeing fish from his weary mind.

The water was turned off, and only the soft plick! plick! plick! of the drops falling off their bodies remained behind, echoing in the silence around them like a tangible presence. Steve breathed the steam in deep, mouth open against the steady throb of Bucky’s pulsepoint. As tired as he was, his heart felt like a livewire, a buzzing arch of light connected straight to Bucky’s. They were alive. They were together. Nothing else matters but that.

In the echoing silence, Bucky carefully slid the glass door open, and then hoisted Steve into his arms like he weighed nothing. Far from complaining, Steve just let his head loll against Bucky’s shoulder and tucked himself even smaller under his chin.

“Finally carrying you through the threshold, sweetheart,” Bucky teased him as they entered the bedroom; but he did it so, so softly. His voice warm and golden like honey. Steve valiantly tried to swat at him, but his eyelids refused to open, and his limbs felt about as strong as skinny green stems. Bucky huffed out a laugh, his breath trembling against Steve’s forehead, and then the softness of the mattress was welcoming his body, swallowing him the tiniest little bit in.

Steve blindly reached out, drew Bucky to him as if he were feeling incomplete. It was only once they were touching all over, bare skin to bare skin, that he allowed himself to let go. His sleep was the deep, engulfing slumber of the truly exhausted. If he dreamed of anything, it was of Bucky, but upon waking he did not remember.

  
  
  


**~TBC**

Handy forties-lingo dictionary:

 **half seas over:** drunk


	16. Chapter 16 - Within these Walls Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I managed to post this when I said I would, go me! :D  
> 

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 16:** Within these walls - Part 2.

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 5206.

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, The Avengers.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and developing/hinted ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warnings:** none.

 **Summary:** “I guess you two _might_ communicate better with fists than with words,” Bucky allowed, glancing between Steve and Natasha.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**T** he first thing Steve was aware of when he woke up was the warmth. It took him a moment to realise that Bucky was spooning him. He had both arms wrapped tight around Steve’s waist, and even the metal arm felt warm with the combined heat of their bodies.

Immediately, Steve tucked himself even closer, grinning when he felt Bucky nosing at the short hair at the nape of his neck.

“G’mornin’ sunshine,” Bucky rumbled, tugging until he could drop a kiss on Steve’s cheek. “Slept well?”

“And how!” Steve answered around a yawn. His jaw cracked loudly, and when he twisted around so did his neck.

“You sound like an old floorboard,” Bucky huffed out on a chuckle. “Are you gonna creak and crackle if I touch you?”

“Dry up, I ache all over…!” Steve complained, squirming away from Bucky’s tickling hands. He was only too happy to slump back against Bucky’s chest when those hands curved gently onto his hips. “I feel like a chopper got me.”

“Yeah, I can relate,” Bucky hummed. “I was gonna go get me some breakfast; I can bring some back for you if it hurts that bad?”

Steve took a quick stock of his body, contemplated the merits of staying in bed versus the idea of getting separated from Bucky, and was quick to shake his head.

“No need, I’m coming with.”

Bucky dropped a kiss under Steve's jaw, making his lugs stutter like when he used to have asthma. Leaping from the bed, Bucky padded gloriously naked to the closet and delved inside to fish up underwear, sweatpants and hoodies for them both.

Steve found that there was a strange sense of comfort to be found in wearing Bucky’s clothes. He _loved_ it when they stole each other’s stuff, even if it was just a cap or a shirt. It felt wonderfully intimate, and like a declaration of intent: he’s mine. I’m his. Now, decked completely in Bucky’s clothes, Steve felt the same enveloping sense of belonging - I’m his. He’s mine - but the warm glow in his chest reminded him of when he was small and sick, and his mom would bury him in her sweet-smelling sweater and speak softly to him as he braved the raging fevers.

The knowledge spread through him, golden like honey. They were family already, the two of them. They were friends. They were brothers in arms. And more than that, they were husbands. Lovers. They were each other’s _everything_ , and Steve was swept away by the tide of love he felt for this wonderful, impossible man at his side. He’d been thinking it before, in an abstract sense, but-- Bucky really was his soulmate, wasn’t he? And the two of them? Men out of time, enhanced and superhuman, separated by war and then reunited across the centuries? They were _a miracle_.

On impulse, Steve tugged Bucky back into him. It was the third time they tried the trick, but pouncing on someone and kissing them while grinning like a loon really didn’t get easier with practice.

Bucky kissed him back eagerly, sweeping Steve clear off the floor, and twirling him around a couple of times like the complete goof that he was. Steve felt the closest thing to drunk he’d ever experienced in his life, and swore to himself that he’d never lose Bucky again. Come what may, he’d fight to keep Bucky by his side, till the end of Time.

_Till the end of the line._

Of course, their super-stomachs couldn’t be distracted much longer. Rather than stay in Bucky’s apartment, like Steve had half-expected, they took the elevator and asked JARVIS to drop them to the Kitchen area way below.

The kitchen was state-of-the-art and supposedly impressive; and yet Steve could only survey the chromed surfaces and open space with a twinge of disappointment. For a moment, he missed the minuscule, warm-toned kitchen back at the cottage so intensely that he could almost see it; could almost smell the nutty aroma of their morning coffee, the lemony scent that wafted from the soapy water they always forgot to drain from the sink.

Here, everything was sleek and cold, reflecting light like polished ice. Steve felt blinded by the brightness. The only detectable smell was the potent stench of detergent, and there wasn’t a cracked glass near the window for him or Bucky to drop a handful of flowers in after their morning run.

“Come on, let’s get some caffeine in you,” Bucky enticed, leading the way to the strangest-looking contraption Steve had ever seen. It was tall and as shiny as basically every thing in the Tower, with a cluster of buttons on top that lit up when pressed. Bucky moved his hands around like a magician on its stage, and then the machine started to buzz loudly, and after a few seconds, to spew out coffee.

The Avengers appeared as if summoned by the smell.

Natasha sauntered in with her hair immaculately coiffed and flawless make-up, her lips so red that Steve was reminded abruptly of Peggy. She was wearing a man’s pajamas way too big for her, and her bare feet looked dainty and pale. She made a beeline for the coffee machine as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, but rather than grab a mug for herself, she wrapped an arm around Bucky's waist and stole his own, leaning against his side as she sipped.

She tilted her chin down and looked up at Steve fixedly, just like a cat. But her glacial confidence had melted into something more vulnerable somewhere along the way, and rather than challenging him, she seemed to be asking Steve for permission.

Steve took a deep breath, let it flow down into his chest cavity, cooling that brimstone beast that was already, _already_ gnashing its teeth. They had a truce, Natasha and he. Or so Steve liked to think. Passing Bucky his own coffee, he kissed him sweetly on the lips and went to fix himself a new cup.

Clint wandered in right about then. He was wearing nothing but boxers, several bandages and an array of scars. He took a look at them, knuckled at the corner of his eye, and mumbled something that might’ve been a greeting.

He rummaged inside the cupboards, made a victorious ”Ah-ah!” noise and began pulling out a feast: boxed pastries, cake, cereals, bread, various syrups and toppings. From the fridge he pulled out bottles of milk and juice, long strings of bacon and an handful of eggs.

He scrambled eggs and fried bacon for all of them, then hopped onto the counter, tapping his heel against the cupboards as he chewed. Steve felt Natasha’s eyes on him as he went to lean next to Clint, but he ignored her in favour of trying to make friends with the archer. He came with Bucky’s stamp of approval; he was a cool, experienced fighter who knew how to keep a cool head during a battle, and seemed like someone Steve might get along with. Besides: with what he’d been through, having one more person showing him kindness could only help Clint in the long run.

Bruce shuffled in next, looking nothing short of cuddly and absolutely exhausted. He was wearing fuzzy slippers and a fleece blanket around his shoulders. He pulled out some fruit, tea and oatmeal to put on the table. Tony followed him around like duckling, face-planting between Bruce’s shoulder blades as soon as he came to a stop at the counter.

Thor ambled in like a ghost: silent and diminished, as if a light of some sort had been snuffed out inside him. It looked like he’d washed his hair and dusted his clothes, but he still wore his armour, with the singed end of his cape trailing in tatters behind him. He went to sit close to Clint’s perch, and smiled wanly when he was offered a plate of eggs of his own.

Midway through their breakfast a tall, thin lady with the typical irish complexion and long red hair slipped inside, her heels clicking rhythmically on the polished floor. An handsome afro-american man followed after her, broad shoulders squared imposingly and eyes as sharp as flint. His face was pleasant, and his smile warm; but he had the bearing of a seasoned soldier, a sort of steel in his bones that was visible even when he was relaxed. Steve’s curiosity was immediately piqued by the pair, but he said nothing.

The woman marched up to Tony, and somehow managed to kiss his cheek without dislodging him from his perch against Bruce. She cooed as she rubbed away the lipstick mark she’d left behind, and Tony fussed emphatically. The soldier stood at parade rest and watched on with obvious fondness, like those were all steps of a dance the two were used to perform. When the woman stepped back, the soldier arched an eyebrow at Tony, and they seemed to have an entire silent conversation within the space of a breath.

They didn’t stay long - the woman, Pepper, nibbled delicately on a croissant when Tony put it to her lips, while the soldier, Colonel James Rhodes, agreed to have a single cup of coffee before they both excused themselves.

“I would keep away from Google today,” Rhodes advised before leaving.

Natasha muttered something degrading about the news and social media as a whole, then went back to her coffee, looking well and truly done. She’d spat out her comment in Russian, but the tone of it had been unmistakable.

Steve went studiously still, his heart pounding at his temples.

Google.

He hadn’t - he hadn’t thought about _Google._

Back at the cabin, JARVIS had been the genie-in-the-bottle that would answer all their questions. But Bucky had made sure Steve could navigate the internet all on his own, and given him a crash course on searching engines, sites, scams, viruses and the likes.

If he wanted. If only Steve _wanted_. The answer to his question was - literally - at his fingertips.

_Who the hell was the Winter Soldier?_

Like a thing magnetised, Bucky’s head tilted towards him. Steve was sure that nothing of his current turmoil was showing on his face, and he was moved by the worry etched clearly in Bucky’s face. They gazed at each other for a small eternity, lost in the subtle, profound connection that linked them. And they would’ve stayed like that for an eternity more, if Tony hadn’t yowled like a strangled cat.

In true Tony fashion, he’d ignored Rhodes’s warning, flailed one-handed until a screen had appeared mid-air, and had been trying to dive into Google-land until someone had kicked him under the table.

They all went back to eating after that, and between them they put away enough to feed a whole regiment. They spoke and laughed and touched as they ate, and it was clear to Steve that there was history between most of them. A bond of trust. Of friendship. It shone like a physical thing between them, and Steve tingled with the need to bask in that radiance himself, linked to them in the same way they were all linked together.

He might.

He might almost.

Almost be…

… _ready._

To build back up what he’d built with the Howlies, back an eternity and a few months ago: a family to call his own.

Fury video-called when their plates were down to crumbles. The face of him hovered above the breakfast table, gigantic and see-through like the Wizard of Oz’s. He told them in a clipped, harsh voice that they could not leave town, or even the Tower, until Loki had been dealt with. They could stay in the Kitchen area until his next call, for all he cared. But they could. Not. _Leave._ Steve chafed a bit at being treated like a criminal and put under home arrest; but unlike Tony, he held his tongue and didn’t participate in the row that followed.

Their mood soured, the Avengers dispersed quickly after that.

Steve had picked up the last two of Bucky’s favourite pastries, and was tying them in a kerchief to bring back upstairs, when Natasha draped herself artfully across Bucky’s chest, spilling from his arm like an expensive cloak. Her earlier hesitance gone like snow under a July’s sun, Natasha was suddenly back to glaring at Steve for reasons he couldn’t compute.

“Captain,” she began pleasantly enough, but with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “How would you like a friendly spar between us?”

“ _Natalia,_ ” Bucky warned.

“What?” She said, shoulders rippling in a graceful half-shrug. “You’re going to be busy with Clint, I think I should take the time to acquaint myself with your _husband_ ,” and she put such a stress on the title, almost like she expected Steve to have a specific epiphany from just the sound of it.

Slowly, Steve breathed out a long breath that felt like fire. He’d let them have their closeness and their comfort all morning, and this is what he got? Unjustified animosity? He ground his teeth, that familiar fire licking inside his ribcage. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bucky open up his mouth to protest. Without conscious thought, he strode forward, gave Bucky an hard, ravaging kiss that left him reeling, and assured him in as calm a voice as he could muster:

“Yeah, Buck, don’t worry. I know you wanted to talk to your friend. If Natasha is game to keep me company, at least I won’t have to sit on my hands all day waiting for ya.”

Bucky looked deeply into Steve’s eyes, suspicious. Steve grinned back, innocent like a lamb, and Bucky snorted, not believing it for a second.

“I guess you two _might_ communicate better with fists than with words,” he allowed, glancing between the two. “Have fun herding the brat,” he wished with cheerful sarcasm.

“Will teach him a thing or two,” Natasha promised with a flip of her hair, and Bucky snorted.

“Who says I was talking to _you_?” Her mouth dropped open in silent indignation, but she pursed it shut when Bucky leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Play nice, Spiderling. I want _both my brats_ back in one piece.”

She heaved a sigh, but whatever answer she might have for that was drowned by Tony’s indignant: “Is it kissy hour?! Why am I not getting any kiss?!”

He failed to get one from Bruce, so he turned expectantly towards his Papa Bear, lips pursed. Bucky flicked him on the forehead instead, and informed him that he’d been using Papa Bear for a whole six months now. While Tony tried - and failed - to settle on a novel nickname, Bucky gave Bruce a meaningful glance. The Doctor, however, willfully misinterpreted it. He threw up his hands up in a surrendering fashion, and said:

“No kiss for me, thanks. I’d rather not wake the _rage beast_ ,” glancing at Steve in such a pointed way that had him going pink and Tony laughing out loud.

Looking at where Clint was slinking away unnoticed, Bucky called him loudly, making him jump three feet in the air like a startled cat.

“Not so fast, Clint. You heard ‘hem. You and I are in for a talk while our better halves hash it out in blood.”

Clint looked at him for a moment like he expected blood to be spilled at any moment, then twisted his hands together.

“Uh. Couldn’t we. Like. Skip the talking and just go cheer them on as they spar?” he asked with an hopeful lilt to his voice, and looked crestfallen when Bucky shook his head. He walked over and threw an arm around Clint’s shoulders, guiding him back towards the center of the room and away from the window he’d been creeping towards.

“Not this time, pal. Not this time.” He bumped hips with Natasha as he passed her, dropped a fleeting hand on the back of Steve’s neck and yes, even skimmed his fingers along Tony’s side, if only to erase his pouting.

By then, all the touching and smiling had roused Thor’s interest. Perking up from his slump, he curiously asked if kissing was a celebratory custom in Midgar. He was told that no, not really, but he gifted a round of hearty hugs, anyway; thumping each of them hard enough on the back that they were lucky not to spit a lug. As Clint and Bucky drifted away, they could hear Thor roping Tony and Bruce into a discussion about what sort of touching was considered proper in Earth’s society.

  
  


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**S** teve’s momma had raised herself a proper boy. One that would never raise his hand to a lady with violent intent.

However, that momma’s boy had had the privilege to spar with _the_ Peggy Carter, so he knew better than to underestimate an opponent because she was more lithe, shorter, and of the opposite gender as him.

As a matter of fact, he soon found out that Natasha was one _ruthless_ sparring partner. She was fast, she was agile. Skilled. Powerful. She didn’t have a serum protecting her bones from snapping if Steve were to apply too much pressure, but that was the only concession Steve could make her, something true of all other human beings.

She sent Steve spinning more than once, reeling, stumbling on his own two feet. She even managed to pin him down a couple of times. Above all else though, she was cunning. So when she noticed that Steve was about to up his game, Natasha…

…started to _talk._

“Has Bucky ever showed you the pictures of when he went undercover as a swimsuit model?” she said at one point, and not one second after Steve was looking up at her from the floor, breathless and dazed from a blow to the neck.

“Oh, I think you’ll find a welcome basket in your room. Full of sex toys,” she said breezly, and down Steve went, the air kicked out of his chest.

“No, but seriously,” she purred a couple of hours into their match. And just when Steve thought he had braced himself for anything suggestive, she added: “Bucky loves kids, so how do you feel about _adopting_?” and no, it seems like Steve wasn’t getting up this time around, too busy daydreaming about a baby nestled in the curve of Bucky’s neck, giggling delightedly as Steve tickled her little feet.

“You got it bad,” Natasha said, peering down at him. She had her lips pressed together to try and contain a smile, but her eyes twinkled tellingly.

“Bucky’s it for me,” Steve huffed out, not seeing the point in hiding it. He didn’t see the point of moving either, so he just remained there, starfished on the mat and looking up at the ceiling like a stargazing kid.

It came as no surprise that Stark Tower could boast a series of floors dedicated to physical activity. Calling the whole thing a gym was reductive, considering that along the more basic equipment and structures there was also a few running circuits, two swimming pools, tennis courts, and something Natasha had referred to as “Holo Deck” for in-depth training.

They’d skirted the Holo Deck and slipped into what looked like a boxing gym: there was a ring in the middle of the room, which is where they’d been trading blows for the last several hours. Holding court around the ring there was an array of heavy punching bags, speed bags, teardrop bags, double-end bags and a few lifesize dummies. A spread of blue yoga mats took over a quarter of the room, and there was a lot of equipment neatly divided in their metal cubbies, such as jumping rope, gloves, headgear, shoes with non-slip soles and wrapping material. There were also free weights and a row of different machines, and also one hell of a huge first aid box sitting in a corner.

Natasha pushed a lock of red hair behind her ear, nodding pensively. A fine sheen of sweat gleamed on her skin, but she wasn’t even short of breath.

“I think I’d got that,” she conceded. She stepped over Steve sprawled body, folded her legs under herself and sat down beside him. She was every bit as elegant and fluid as a big jungle cat, mesmerizing in the same way Bucky knew how to be.

“You don’t really approve of me though, do you?” Steve asked, not bothering to sit up.

Natasha pursed her lips.

“I got nothing against _you_. I just don’t approve of anything that hurts him,” she said slowly. “You have hurt him in the past. Who’s to say you won’t hurt him again in the future?”

“I _can’t_ promise to never hurt him.”

“That’s not what I want from you.” She eyed him oddly, like she was weighting him still. “Such a promise would be pointless. And an outright lie. If you made it to me, I’d never trust you.”

“Then what do you _want_?”

“I want you to be the kind of person who would do _anything_ for him.”

“Like,” Steve swallowed, “decimating aliens when it looked like they’d killed him?”

“Violence is a given,” she curled on herself, hugging her knees. Her eyes were distant now, not cold exactly, but hazy in such a way as if she, too, could see that veil of snow that still haunted Steve. “It’s par for the course for people like us. It’s what we are made to do. It’s in our blood. No. I need you to do the _unthinkable_ for him.”

“Anything,” Steve swore. Natasha’s eyes flickered up to him, her lips twitching into a pale smile.

“And you mean it, too. Good.”

“What do you need?” he asked. He might not know the history between Bucky and Natasha, but one thing he knew without doubt was that he needed her approval, like a visceral thing.

She shook her head. There was sadness in her face, spreading like ripples in a pond.

“It’s not anything set. Nothing as easy as that. I just-- You’ll need to be strong. For him. Accept him. His past. Defend him. Support him. Forgive him, because he damn well _won’t_. And--”

“-and?”

She looked down and away, snow in her eyes.

“…and I need you to be the kind of person who will allow me close to him. Despite what I am.”

Silence echoed between them, pressing on their chests and temples like a weight. Then:

“What _are_ you?” Steve asked carefully.

“Someone with a lot of red in her ledger, Captain.”

“All soldiers have blood dripping from their hands, Natasha.”

“Not like this. Not like _me_.”

Steve turned his face away, allowing her some privacy. When he took stock of his body, he realised he’d been opening and closing his fists. He squeezed his fingers one more time, feeling the blunt crescents of his nails dig into palms, feeling the burn on his skin, and then slowly released his fists, allowing the breath back into his lungs.

“You love him, don’t you?” he asked. His voice echoed oddly in the silence, a noise like glass cracking under pressure.

Natasha cast her eyes into the distance. She was pale with emotion, her eyes seeing things Steve couldn’t even imagine. Things of the past, things of the soul.

“I do,” she said at least. It was such a simple statement, and all the more powerful for its honesty.

Steve breathed a long, shaky breath out, thrumming with resigned sadness. He’d have to come to terms with it, he supposed. Bucky had never stopped loving him, he was sure of that. But he’d been _dead_ , and Natasha was… she _was_. She was incredible. Strong. Capable. Beautiful. She was--

\--knocking her foot insistently against his own, and by the look on her face, she’d been doing it for a while.

“Knock it off, Rogers. I don’t love him like _that_. I don’t find him desirable. I never have.”

Steve made a dubious sound in the back of his throat, somewhat peeved by the notion that anybody might come to know Bucky and not find him the most beautiful thing on Earth.

Natasha looked heavenwards as if asking for patience, with a show of theatrics that made Steve go all flustered and pink. “Love is a trap, Rogers. It’s something only children can truly believe in.”

“But?” Steve ventured, dubious.

“But I was a child once. And love has left its scar on me before I could know better. So yes, I love him. But not in the way you do. I just…” one of her shoulders rose and fell in a smooth ripple. There was so much elegance in that little shrug, it was like a ballet move. “I will have him in my life,” she said, not explaining as much as _ordering_.

Steve shifted his eyes away from her face. It was like looking at the sun for a moment, the way her countenance glowed.

“I don’t know anything about you, Natasha,” he began, slow and measured. “I am in no position to judge what’s in your past. And if we ever become friends along the road? It still won’t give me any right to pass judgment over you. But I can tell you the same thing I told Tony: _Bucky is his own person._ No one - not a goddamn person in this universe - can decide who he can spend time with. He picked you. You’re part of his family. And if anyone tried to pry the two of you apart - they’d have to answer to _me_.”

Natasha was silent for a long moment, then allowed herself a soft incredulous snort.

“You have such a simplistic lookout on life, don’t you? Everything is either right or wrong. Evil people attack, and the Good Cap runs to the rescue.”

“No, that’s not it.” Steve picked at his own thoughts carefully for a while. “Nothing in life is ever completely black or white. But once you find your truth? You fight for it till your dying breath, no matter what.”

Natasha’s head pivoted on her neck, slow and smooth in a way that was almost eerie. Once she was facing him, she blinked her fixed eyes once, long and slow like a cat.

“Bucky is your truth,” she surmised, and suddenly: the vulnerability and sadness were all gone. She had either dropped her mask or carefully slipped on a new one, Steve couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was clear she was done talking.

It wasn’t a surprising outcome, per se; Steve hadn’t known her long, but he could tell she couldn’t suffer to be open for longer than necessary. And yet, it was unnerving to watch the madcap glee wash over her face like she hadn’t just offered him a glimpse of her soul.

“Oh my god, you’re so _gone_ on him,” she gushed over his shy stammering. “I’m not sure whether it’s tragic or adorable, really.”

“I wasn’t - I didn’t - how did you take _that_ out of what I was saying?” he demanded incredulously.

“I’ll go with adorable,” she said, teasingly. “Is this a fairytale? Are you Prince Charming? No, you’re more of a Snow White, aren’t you? Sleeping till Prince Bucky kissed you awake?”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You’re going to give me whiplash,” he groused. “First you hate me, then you seem friendly, then after breakfast you were back to hating me again, then you go back to civil and now _this_.”

She squinted suddenly at him.

“You _know_ what made me cross with you this morning, don’t you?”

“What did I do?” Steve gaped at Natasha, and she gaped right back at him.

“You _don’t know_?!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“ _Exactly!_ ”

Steve tipped his head to the side in a remarkable impression of a Golden Retriever.

“What… what does that even mean?” he sounded breathless with confusion. Natasha showed remarkable restraint when she refrained from slugging him in the head.

“Captain Rogers… _Steve_ … after what happened yesterday… after what _Bucky_ did yesterday… You. Did. _Nothing_ in return,” she said with that careful enunciating tone of someone explaining something easy to a simple mind.

“And that is, uh, _bad_?” Steve ventured, confused beyond belief. Aliens had come knocking on their door, but he’d kept his cool. He and Bucky had been wrenched from their home, but he hadn’t said a peep. Hey, he’d led a team of super-powered individuals when he had next to no intel and no clear objective other than “survive”, and they’d made it out alive. Sure, Bucky had been lost in the fray for a moment, but what did she expect Steve to do? To bundle Bucky in blankets and forever hide him from the world? Or to fall on his sword for failing to have Bucky’s back? Honestly, either option seemed likely with her.

Now it was Natasha’s turn to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“Ugh. _Men._ You know what, I take back all the points from Griffindor. You’re back on probation.”

Steve perked up, looking remarkably like a puppy that had been offered a treat.

“I got that reference!”

His face scrunched in a frown, and soon after he was springing up into a sitting position, heart beating inside his mouth.

“You approve of me!” his voice came out half-strangled. Somehow, he could feel that this was a momentous thing, some great gift not easily given.

“I very grudgingly _approved_ ,” Natasha countered, stressing the past tense. Her tone was teetering on the edge of fond teasing, and that gave Steve an unfair amount of hope. “Not so much anymore,” she stretched up in that way she had, effortless and elegant, but grumbled under her breath in Russian all the way to the door.

Steve called her name before she could slip outside, and she turned to cock an eyebrow at him.

Her look, her arched eyebrow, the way she pushed a lock of hair away from her forehead. It was all Bucky. The same way the nose-wriggle Tony did from time to time was all Bucky.

Steve was knocked aside by the realisation. He didn't know why it sent his heart lurching, but it did. She was Bucky’s. Through and thorough. And so was Tony. But then, where did that leave _Steve_ , exactly? Steve, the once-unattainable love, the boy who had never grown older, but was first swallowed and then thrown out by the tide of Time. Who’d been left untouched by the decades that had plasmated Bucky into the man he was now and tempered the bond between him and these amazing people.

Steve found himself hesitating, breathless and still, under her curious glance, then simply blurted out:

“Who is the Winter Soldier?”

Her eyes sharpened again, and Steve felt their cutting edge almost like a physical touch.

“He hasn’t told you?” she asked, a hint of danger in her voice.

“I didn’t let him,” Steve admitted, knowing she would suffer nothing but the truth.

Natasha blew out a long breath.

“Let him,” she ordered, visibly keeping any sort of comment to herself. “ _Now._ ”

She left, and the door banged shut behind her, loud like thunder.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**

**(Before reading chapter 17, please hop onto work 2 of this series first if you want[to discover what made Natasha so cross with Steve](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785538) :D)**

Handy twenties-to-forties-lingo dictionary:

 **And how(l):** And empathic response like “You said it!”

 **Dry up!:** Shut up!

 **Chopper:** a sub-machine gun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I just want to thank you all for the lovely feedback! I'm still momentarily stuck on a biweekly posting schedule, so next chapter s should be up in two weeks, too!  
> Thanks for the patience! :D


	17. Chapter 17 - Within these Walls Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've run out of lyrics to use as titles, as said before. XD

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 17:** Within these Walls Part 3

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** 3816.

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, The Avengers.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and developing/hinted ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warning:** Not a warning, per se, but a reminder you might want to read [“What made her cross with him”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785538) before this one, as a chapter 16.5 of sorts.

**Summary:**

  
  
  


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**B** ucky was gone that whole first day they spent at the Tower.

Every time Steve asked after him, JARVIS said that Bucky could be found at the firing range with Clint. Steve wanted to see him, almost aching with the need of it. And more than that: he wanted to _help_. Clint had been through something horrible, violent and unaccountably _violating_ , a crime so terrible Steve could barely wrap his mind around it.

Clint needed support, some shoulder to lean on. And Steve had always been unable to stay put when somebody was in need. Keeping his distance was hard; but deep down, somewhere private and tender, Steve knew he shouldn’t intrude. Knew he had no right to ask for something as intimate as Clint’s confidence, his trust. No right to see him when he was most vulnerable, cracked open and bleeding from the soul.

Which is why, whenever JARVIS asked if he wanted to be patched through, Steve would shake his head no, miserable but determined.

Sparring with Natasha helped him waste the whole morning, and a shower and a quick lunch propelled him easily into the early afternoon. After that, he grew itchy.

He kept thinking about it.

Kept thinking “Who the hell is the Winter Soldier?”, and remembering that hard-edged woman at the shawarma shop, the pity in her eyes, the tremulous shock in Bucky’s face, the way her kindness had made him go ghostly pale.

Steve found a tablet in his hands before he knew it, but he stared at it, unseeingly, for what felt like hours. One moment, his thumb was hovering over the fingerprint reader at the bottom. The next thing he was aware of, he was several pages deep in a Google search.

There were pictures of him and Bucky kissing after the battle. Blurred and uncentered, but there they were: splattered all over the news like they weren’t something private, desperately intimate. Steve flushed pink thinking of the hundreds - millions! - of strangers that had access to those images. But the boy nestled deep inside him - the boy from the 30s with his eyes punched purple and a trickle of blood under his nose - raised both fists and refused to be _scared_ of what strangers out there might do to people like him and Bucky.

Curiosity killed the cat, as the proverb goes. But Steve was tempted into browsing deeper. He clicked his way into gossip rags that speculated about his identity. Was the man who’d saved New York a Captain America copycat? Was he a hoax? Was he a madman in a patriotic onesies? Was he a _clone_?

A lot of people on a white site with a chirping bird icon were… Steve thought the proper term was “flipping their shit”… and saying that the Captain America sighted in New York was either the “real deal” or the actual Steve Rogers reincarnated to save his darling Sergeant Barnes. 99% of the people on the site agreed that it was just the sort of romantic, poetic justice their tortured souls deserved.

Steve trawled through the commentary for a while. Most of it was nice and encouraging; people had written whole fairy tales about him and Bucky, which made him smile with a confused tenderness. A few stragglers however, suggested that the Winter Soldier had the fake Cap brought into being for his own means: either to overthrow the current Government, or to satisfy his sexual urges. Luckily, those threads were few and had little traction; but their words were deeply ignorant, offensive and at times childishly mean. Steve grated his teeth, but scrolled on. The ugliness of men had long since stopped to surprise him.

The interest from the fans didn’t much surprise him, but he was downright shocked to see politicians, firms and companies using and even _making profit_ from the pictures of their kiss. They had been used in pamphlets and campaigns; to rally people, to make propaganda, to gather funds in his name for things Steve didn’t even know or support. From the political blurbs, he inevitably drifted to ads where the kiss was juxtaposed to -or even printed on- assorted merchandise: useful, everyday stuff like bags and caps emblazoned with his insignia, but also rubbers, slick, toys and assorted sex gear.

Fury steamed inside his lungs. It grew and grew until it burst behind his ribcage, and a sort of resigned bitterness started to spread through him like poison.

Captain America had been objectified from the moment he was born. Dehumanized, glorified, and used as seen fit, like any other soulless tool. Even Steve had resorted to using Captain America’s supposed “perfect sense of logic and tactical sense” as an argument to keep Gabe and Morita on his elite team, something no other officer in the army would have been allowed to do at the time.

But _this -_ this kiss, this life, this _love_ -it belonged to Steve - Steve the fallible, Steve the boy from Brooklyn who had scraped his knuckles bloody on countless bullies’ faces, sweet Sarah’s little boy - not to the ever-shifting icon, the paragon, that blunt instrument of war and propaganda that was the Captain. Nobody should get to touch it. To use it in such a classless fashion, so boorishly and without consent.

Steve felt his stomach lurch. Not because he was ashamed of his feelings, but because of something much simpler and much purer: a need for privacy, a sense of protectiveness over what was close to his heart that rooted deep in his soul. The tablet didn’t crack when he pushed it back down on the coffee table, but it was a close thing. He had to leave the room in a hurry, and he walked wide circles around the table every time he was forced to get back inside. He dearly wished for his axe and seemingly endless supply of logs; but at least there was enough space in Bucky’s bedroom to start doing calisthenics well away from sight.

Around dinnertime, Steve sadly poked at the pastries he’d taken away for Bucky in the morning, and then dumped them unceremoniously in the trash. They had gone hard and dry, and would probably feel like cardboard in the mouth. He let JARVIS guide him back to the kitchen, and found Dr Banner stirring a pot of what smelled like an earthy, filling stew.

Steve’s stomach gurgled before he could make his retreat, and Dr Banner was more than happy to share his dinner with him. It was simple - big chunks of vegetables bobbing in a very thick, spicy stew - and it made Steve think back to his mum’s cooking, the way she could scrape up something delicious from the most modest ingredients, combining whatever poor scraps they had with her considerable ingenuity.

They ate in companionable silence, and when Natasha slinked in to grab a bottle of water, she surprised Steve by flicking a candy bar his way. It was his favourite, too. When he looked at her questioningly, she just offered a shrug and said: “They’re still talking.”

“How is--”

“Bucky is fine,” she answered, at the same time as Steve finished:

“--Clint doing?”

Something rearranged itself over Natasha’s face. Surprise, maybe. But whatever it was, it was gone much too quick to decipher.

“Clint is… managing,” she said carefully, eyeing him again with something like approval. “Having Bucky there… it’s helping.”

Steve nodded. His skin was crawling with the need to stand up and offer his help, but he fell back on a long, long sigh instead. He didn’t know Clint, had no idea what he’d gone through, and he had no platitudes to offer to help him feel better.

He gave Natasha a nod, and she gave one right back, a subtle understanding passing between them.

“How’s Tony?” Natasha directed at Bruce.

He stilled tellingly, then went back to stirring the contents of his bowl with measured carefulness.

“He’s asleep,” he offered, before hiding behind his bowl. Natasha and Steve shared a glance, and then she prompted:

“ _But?_ ”

Bruce fumbled for a moment, then admitted in a resigned tone:

“Having Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes close helped, but he might. Uhm. Benefit from talking with Sergeant Barnes, too. They’re. Uhm. Close, I gather. And. Well. A familiar face might. I mean--” he stammered out, glancing briefly at Steve.

Steve looked back at him, his eyes wide and earnest like something from a painting.

“I know what you mean. If you want to tell Tony, I’m sure Bucky’s going to see him as soon as Clint is feeling a bit better.”

Natasha made a contemplative sound, and both of Bruce’s eyebrows took off over the rim of his glasses. Steve looked quizzically between the two of them, and explained further:

“I’d talk with Tony myself, but I don’t figure it’d help much. If I see him first, I’ll just make sure Bucky remembers to put something in his stomach before sending him your way. They might very well stay holed up all night long, and the last person you’d want dealing with delicate matters is a famished supersoldier.”

“Uh,” Natasha blinked. “Are you for real?”

“Err, yes?” Steve asked, confused again.

Bruce pushed his glasses back up his nose.

“We, uh, thought you might…”

“Be a quote unquote stubborn oaf, and hoard all of Bucky’s attention,” Natasha quipped softly, and Bruce made a flailing gesture towards her, half like he wanted her to take it all back, and half like he was concurring with her assessment.

Steve chuckled good-naturedly at that description of himself.

“Let me guess. Tony said that?”

“Oh, no. Agent Carter did. I can find the interview for you if you want. Really, there are several.”

Steve’s cheeks flushed violently and he ducked his head, a silly grin on his face.

“I. Uhm. I know I can be--”

“A little intense?” Natasha prompted, a small grin on her painted lips. “Possessive? Protective? Sure. And that’s cool with us. But you aren’t even _expecting_ to spend some time with him, and _that’s_ not cool.”

Steve looked her dead in the eye.

“You are Bucky’s family. You need him, and he needs you. I would never keep him from his family--” Natasha startled the living ghost out of Steve by putting a gentle hand over his. Her palm was rough and dry, and the squeeze she gave his fingers was surprisingly firm. She bent to look him in the eye, and enunciated in a kind, clear voice:

“You are his family, too. You need him, and he needs you.” She stepped back like nothing had happened and took a sip from her bottle. “Don’t go all martyr on us, Rogers. You need your comfort too, and suffering in silence has gone out of style.”

“I think that what Agent Romanoff is trying to say is… your dedication to other people is admirable, but don’t let it get in the way of your own happiness and comfort.” Bruce added firmly.

“Translated translation for the simpler minds,” Tony said from the doorway, mouth gaping wide around a yawn, “thanks for giving Clint and me the early admission tickets to the Bucky experience, but you’ve _got_ to kidnap him for yourself at one point or the other! You both deserve some time together. Urgh, goodmorningBruciewherewereyouuuu~” he added, partially muffled since he’d faceplanted between Bruce’s shoulder blades as soon as he was within touching distance. The doctor jumped a bit at the contact, but settled into it easily enough. He carded a gentle hand through Tony’s hair and began to feed him spoonfuls of stew from his own bowl.

Natasha rolled her eyes so far back in her head that Steve feared they might fall off.

“I’m trapped inside a romantic comedy,” she muttered low enough for only Steve to ear.

He chuckled under his breath, but couldn’t find it in himself to disagree.

  
  
  


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**S** teve wasted away the rest of the evening in a similar fashion: wafting about like an unmoored ship, occasionally colliding with the other Avengers for a brief spell of friendly chatter. He found a kindred spirit in Thor, but the God of Thunder soon drifted away to sit outside of his brother’s cell, head bowed but unfaltering in his loyalty, just like an old, beaten dog would sit at the feet of a cruel Master.

Evening came and went. Night fell, and Steve found himself curled on the couch of Bucky’s apartment, looking at the tablet as if it were a divining card. He drifted back on the site with a stylized t as a logo and a simple blue scheme. He saw dozens of pictures of himself: gazing adoringly at Bucky, kissing his mouth like he was ravenous for it; carding trembling hands through his long matted hair, touching him with the same aching, bursting awe of a pilgrim kneeling before the simulacrum of his Saint.

Scattered through the pictures were comments and names. Captain, they called him. Rogers. Cap. Sentinel of Liberty. First Avenger. Star-Sprangled Man. Wingshead. America’s Best. Shield Slinger. The Champion of Justice. But Bucky was called Winter Soldier and little else.

And so, unbidden, the question sprung anew into Steve’s mind, cleaving through his brain with all the violence of a thrown spear.

_Who was the Winter Soldier?_

Steve slammed the tablet down, breathing hard.

He wanted to know.

He _needed_ to know.

If only to help Bucky. To ease the haunted look in his eyes whenever his past was brought up.

_Who was the Winter Soldier?_

And yet, Steve was afraid - pinned, foaming and trashing, animal terror at its finest - that whatever he might discover would sever him from Buckly, wedge a rift so wide between the two of them, that they might never find each other again.

_Who was the Winter Soldier?_

It was Bucky’s secret to tell. Steve had no right to snuff around.

_Who the hell was the Winter Soldier?_

In the middle of the night, Steve ached deeply for their little cottage, a longing so sharp that he could taste its sour tang on his tongue. He put the tablet down, resolving to wait for the the revelation to come in its own time, while knowing full well he’d stop Bucky, time and again, forever and always, from disclosing the truth.

It was the coward way out, he knew, but--

\--he wasn’t ready to know.

Dispirited, Steve fell into the quicksand of his own thoughts, and he must’ve dozed off eventually, because a noise tickled him awake in the grey hours that came before dawn. He perked up, listening sleepily as Bucky moved around the apartment on near-silent feet.

He was as substantial as a ghost in the dark - just the tiniest, whisper-thin sounds echoed around him as he waded in the shadows. The murmur of his feet on the carpet. The soft sush of fabric. The long, reedy sigh of his breath.

It wasn’t until Bucky was done with his rounds and went to sit on the couch, that Steve realised he’d retreated in a corner of it to leave room for his husband.

In silence, he watched Bucky sit. Watched him take a deep breath in, sinking wearily into the cushions. Tilt his head slightly, just enough to give Steve a smile.

“God, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Bucky said soulfully, looking at Steve as if he were a sip of cold water in the desert.

“Missed you too, Buck,” Steve answered just as softly. “How are Clint and Tony doing?”

Bucky’s face pinched with worry.

“Not too good.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, and before he knew it, Steve had his own fingers buried deep in that hair. His nose followed, nuzzling at Bucky’s hairline, his lips sweeping with a gentle pressure along Bucky’s jaw until their lips met. Even in the darkness, Bucky was a luminous beacon, the full moon pulling at the sea, and Steve was the helpless water caught in its gravity.

“I’m sorry I was gone so long,” Bucky breathed against the shell of Steve’s ear. Steve felt goosebumps rise under the fan of Bucky’s hot breath and drifted closer, dragging his lips across the swell of Bucky’s cheek, breathing him in deep.

“I’m the one who told you to go. Family is always a priority.”

“ _You_ are my priority,” Bucky groused stubbornly, sending tingles spreading through Steve’s chest.

“I know,” he revealed, serene with the truth of it. He would wait forever for Bucky, and the time spent alone was a weight he could survive, because he knew himself to be the true north Bucky would be striving for. That’s what they were for each other after all: a sure thing, a missing half, a perfect magnetic pole that would unerringly guide one home to the other. “But I wasn’t injured, and they have gone through something I can’t even imagine. I could wait and they shouldn’t. Simple as that.”

Bucky uttered a breathy noise, and sank deeper into the warmth of Steve’s strong body.

“You’re the best man I’ve ever known, Steve.”

“And _you_ are the best man I have ever know myself,” Steve whispered back, drawing the curves and planes of Bucky's face with lips and fingertips, careful and slow, so slow. “You always take care of everyone around you. You are always there to protect those in need, no matter what it costs you.”

Bucky breathed in deep like he was gearing up to protest, but sighed out another one of those soft groans instead.

“I don’t deserve you.”

Steve huffed out a bitter chuckle.

“Oh, Buck. After all we’ve been through, I don’t think we deserve anything less than each other.”

“Anything that makes you happy...” Bucky began, trailing off as he got lost in the feeling of Steve pressed against him, nuzzling along his throat.

“You do,” Steve swore. “You make me the happiest man on earth.”

Bucky hummed, his throat rippling under Steve’s questing lips. He pulled back, drifting a last, lingering kiss across Steve’s cheek as he went.

“Now, how did _your_ day go?”

“Oh, you know. Done things. Seen people. Got beaten black and blue,” he added an an afterthought, which made Bucky release a peal of incredulous laughter.

“You let the brat win?!”

“I wish! She beat me fair and square.”

Bucky quirked an eyebrow, and Steve felt compelled to answer: “ _Truly_. She got me. She’s good. Real good.”

Bucky breathed out another of those considering noises.

“Did you get to quench that animosity of hers?” the _or do I have to talk to her?_ went unsaid, but was easily heard in the heavy silence that followed.

“You were right, we did communicate better with a fight.”

“And?”

“I like her. She’s… getting there, I hope.”

Bucky ran a finger down the bridge of Steve’s nose, frowning.

“She’s so stubborn and overprotective that-”

“I like that,” Steve interrupted hotly. Natasha might be testing him out, but in a sense so was Steve. She just had it easier: Steve could only approve of anything or anyone that was so fiercely protective of Bucky, whereas Natasha was distrustful by nature and didn’t dare open up so fast to Steve.

“But?” Bucky prodded gently. Steve could tell that Bucky trusted him to resolve this on his own, but was also chomping at the bit with a wave of protectiveness of his own. Both things warmed Steve: the serene trust and the burning possessiveness.

They were like mirrors when it came to this: love drove them to trust each other with anything, but they were too much a part of each other not be overprotective.

“But… she has a… a _claim_ on you,” Steve found himself murmuring, face hot. “And I feel like--”

“I’m yours,” Bucky said firmly before Steve could admit to the jealous beast under his breastbone, that thing of brimstone and hellfire that kept spewing: _Bucky’s mine. He’s mine._

A cool, tingling sensation spread through Steve at the admission. If that thing of fire in him could purr, it’d be doing so, content like a cat that had got the cream.

“I know. Because I’m yours, too.”

“Till the end of the line.”

“Till the end of the line.”

They were entwined together completely by now, like vines that naturally curl together as they grow, entwined so deeply you can’t tell one plant from the other, can’t tell which one bore fruit and which one is the blossoms-carrier.

Bucky was lying on his back and Steve was blanketing him completely, their legs tangled, arms around each other, caressing each other’s skin with gentle lips. Steve felt his heart settle in his chest, like a key falling into place.

“Can we go back home?” he asked in the tender hollow behind Bucky’s jaw. Even Steve himself didn’t know if he meant the cottage, or the past.

Bucky folded Steve into his own chest, and didn’t even hesitate: “Yes,” he said readily, full of promise.

But Steve’s mind went back to Tony’s feet on Bucky’s lap, to Natasha’s ankle hooked over Bucky’s, keeping her from going adrift. He thought of the way they all clustered around him, these great heroes, these damaged people, like ducklings seeking warmth.

Then, startlingly, he thought of Natasha’s hand on his own, delicate and strong. Her earnest eyes as she worried for him. He thought of Bruce spooning the stew in a bowl for him and sharing the recipe with a bashful smile; of Tony saying “you deserve it” like it was a given.

“Just to get our stuff,” Steve heard himself promise. “My sketchbooks. Our pictures. The afgan. Then we can come stay here. Tony would love that.”

“You wanna live here?” Bucky asked dubiously.

“Well,” he answered. “This is your home, ain’t it?”

Bucky pressed his lips to the middle of Steve’s forehead, gentle like a benediction.

“ _You_ are a my home,” he whispered. His voice was smoke and whiskey - velvet-rough, hot like fire. It raked down Steve’s soul, made him shiver with the pleasure of it.

“But-” Steve forced out around the lump in his throat. “Your friends--”

“Don’t always live here,” Bucky revealed. He leaned back, catching Steve’s eyes. “This is more of an operational base for most of them. Besides, Tony _did_ buy us the cottage after all.”

Steve felt his mouth drop open.

“ _He what?!_ ”

“Apparently, it was ours from the beginning. Tony was just playing coy.”

“He bought us a house?!” Steve half-shrieked and half-whispered, his temples pounding.

“He bought us _our_ house,” Bucky answered with a delighted grin. It softened an heartbeat later, and he leaned down to drop a kiss on Steve’s slack, surprised mouth. “We can go home whenever you want, Steve. I promise.”

His hands gripping handfuls of Bucky’s shirt, Steve could do nothing but command:

“Then let’s go.”

And Bucky simply answered: “ _As you wish._ ”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, good news first: only two more chapters, and this is over!!! \0/  
> Bad news: ONLY TWO MORE CHAPTERS AND THIS IS OVER!!!! ;______;  
> The actual bad news though, is that I've YET to start writing 'hem, and my notes are gone -_-  
> I'LL GET THEM TO YOU THOUGH, THIS I SWEAR


	18. Chapter 16 - It feels impossible (it's not impossible)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve felt so full of love he thought he might die of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monthly update (almost) managed. It's been a crazy couple months, but the chapter is done and it's done the way it wanted. More powerful than I'd originally planned it to be, but it works and it refuses to be mellowed.
> 
> Please have a look at the warnings before proceeding. There's nothing violent, nothing graphic and hopefully nothing triggering (I mention vomit once. If it triggers you, please be careful), but there's a word of advice.

**Title:** Rewrite the Stars.

 **Chapter 18:** It feels impossible (it's not impossible)

 **Author:** Nemesi.

 **Beta:** Self-betaed

 **Fandom:**  Captain America.

 **Continuity:** MCU.

 **Genre:** Fluff&Angst. Romance. Light humor.

 **Chapter Word Count:** Almost 4000.

 **Characters:** Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Howard Stark  & various CA:TFA, Avengers and CA:TWS characters mentioned.

 **Pairings:** Steve/Bucky, with past/physical only Howard/Bucky and pre/hinted ScienceBros.

 **Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

 **Disclaimer:** Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.

 **Warning:** ** _*****SPOILER******_** This one gets mean towards the end. Nothing graphic, nothing violent, but harsh words are uttered, and hearts are broken. THIS DOES SAY HAPPY ENDING ON THE TIN, THOUGH. Believe in it. Hang on tight. **_*****SPOILER******_**

 **Summary:** Steve felt so full of love he thought he might die of it.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**T** he day the Avengers finally sent Loki back to his home planet was warm and clear. The air was fresh, fragrant; the sun shone like a benediction. It was like a miniature summer had crystallized perfectly around New York, balmy and sweet and mellow.

Stark Tower, in contrast, looked like the lair of some fairytale witch. Storm clouds pooled heavily around the top, rolling and rolling in tumultuous waves. When the Avengers set out towards Central Park, the clouds crawled after them like living things, stopping only when they did, in a blocked off area behind a copse of trees.

Thor tried to apologise for the inconvenience, face tight with grief. After the fight with his brother he was inconsolable, and he had a hard time keeping the weather from mirroring his turmoil. It was only with much effort that he managed to dispel the gathering clouds.

It was strange, seeing someone as powerful and imposing as Thor reduced to such a wretched state. Despite that, it was the sight of _Loki_ of all people, who caused Steve’s heart to squeeze uncomfortably in his chest.

As per order of his Father, King Odin of Asgard, Loki had been muzzled - just like an animal. His eyes, over the ridge of the muzzle, looked wide and wet, also more terrified animal than scorned God. Bucky seemed like he was having a hard time watching him, too. He kept frowning, averting his eyes, clenching his fists, his jaw. More than once his whole body twitched tellingly, instinctually trying to step forward when the rune-engraved manacles banded around Loki’s wrists and ankles caused him to stumble.

Stripped of his voice, his powers, his dignity, the man who’d tried to conquer Earth looked diminished, hurt; scared and young in a way that tugged at something deep inside them. Steve and Bucky shared a grim glance. They both found themselves wondering if there was more to Loki’s attempt of conquest than simple greed, or madness. But with his lips sealed thusly, they never got a chance to interrogate him properly - and probably never _would_.

A small crowd had gathered in a wide ring beyond the trees, kept at bay by a group of SHIELD agents in plain clothes. Despite the distance, when Tony snapped open the case he was carrying, and Bruce carefully transferred the cylinder holding the glowing blue Tesseract into Thor’s hands, there was an audible gasp from all around.

Steve grimaced and shared another disparaging look with Bucky. It was a shame that they couldn’t have seen the Asgardians off from the top of the Tower. Thor had explained something about how summoning the passage to his home planet would make the very fabric of reality oscillate at a frequency that would bend and tear it, causing energy peaks and bursts like contained supernovas. A seal would protect the area from being scorched, but that seal needed to be cast in a wide expanses of iron-free, preferably green-covered land for it to work.

It was logical, Steve supposed. As logical as anything magic-related might go, really. Still, being out in the open made his a sense of unease pool at the back of his throat.

Thor hesitated a moment before offering the cylinder containing the Tesseract to his brother. Loki’s chest heaved. Just the once. Then he held out his bound hands and touched the tips of his pale, splindy fingers to the cool glass. A look of despair passed over Thor’s face, and then he put a gentle palm over his brother’s shaking hand, curling it carefully around the container.

He offered a nod to the other Avengers, and with a flash of light, he was gone. Once Steve was done blinking the spots away from his eyes, he saw that a complicated rune had been etched into the ground, a faint trail of smoke and waves of heat flickering up from the scorched soil.

Steve’s eyes were drawn back to Bucky, who held his gaze for a moment, before his face softened into something welcoming and warm. Steve couldn’t help it - he drifted closer, wedging his shoulder against Bucky’s own, as though he were still small enough to tuck himself into the curve of Bucky’s chest and hang on like a limpet. The contact was immediately thrilling, but also anchoring in a sense that was hard to explain - as if by just existing together, they made life all the more real, tangible, and less of a drifting dream.

They were just standing there, shoulders brushing together with every breath, doing nothing but watching pensively into the distance; and _still_ Natasha threw them a knowing little smile, while Tony wiggled his nose that way he did whenever Steve and Bucky were being “cute enough to give me cavities, OMG you two, just _STHAP_.”

“That was underwhelming,” Tony said, face still scrunched up like a bunny’s. “Did anyone else find it underwhelming?”

“I don’t know, Tony,” Bruce answered slowly, chewing on his bottom lip. “I for one found it fascinating. Imagine the sort of scientific discoveries that must have transpired to bring a society to such an advanced level of transport.”

“Did I say underwhelming? _Moi?_ I believe not! I said _fascinating_. Obviously,” Tony rapid-fired back, nodding quickly to himself. Bruce looked back at him with a fond smile teasing at his lips. “Uh-uh.”

Natasha rolled her eyes in amusement, and even Clint - who’d been tense and subdued the whole time he’d been forced into Loki’s vicinity - sniggered quietly under his breath.

Since the Avengers didn’t seem to be doing anything flashy, the crowd lowered their phones. Bored, people began to disperse with a low grumble, shaking their wet heads and wringing their clothes.

“So, what are your plans now?” Natasha asked, pushing her hair away from her forehead. The sun was back in full force, but her hair was slightly damp still, and it clung like shadow spiderwebs to her pale skin.

“Steve and I are going home,” Bucky answered easily. “JARVIS’s already got a quinjet waiting for us at the SHIELD strip just outside the city,” Steve gave a silent nod of confirmation.

“What, just like that?!” Tony asked, peering at them from over the rim of his sunglasses. “But I had a whole thing planned!”

“Do you mean a party?” Steve asked with a suspicious frown.

“Pfffffffffffffttttttttttt, what, no, that’s so mundane. I was going to, like, lure you the Malibu house, have JARVIS begin the lockdown protocol and shine a couple stage lights on me. I’d reveal my Frank Furter outfit, drop theatrically onto my knees and hold onto Bucky’s legs while crying bitter tears and--I had a whole routine planned, actually. Wonder Widow there was supposed to be my backup dancer and spin me round like a proper Odette as I begged you two not to go. I even had a choir fly in from Bulgaria to wail dramatically as you muscled the doors open and rode off into the sunset with Bucky in your arms.”

“Somehow… I believe that,” Steve said carefully, blinking owlishly to banish the image seared in his brain.

“That’s because he’s such a Daddy’s boy,” Natasha retorted dryly, “that kind of dramatics are right up his alley.”

Clint levelled her with an incredulous look, which got him a subtle elbow in the stomach. Tony just about choked himself on nothing but air.

“Excuse me?! _I’m_ the daddy’s boy?! I’m not the princess of the family!”

“That’s arguable,” Natasha replied placidly, her eyebrow cocked in challenge.

Tony’s bottom lip jutted out like a windowsill as he pouted at her. Bruce coughed a quiet laugh into his fist, and looked up at Steve with eyes that shone with mirth.

“I can promise you he’d only planned some refreshments, Captain.”

“It’s Steve for you, Doctor, ” Steve reminded him gently.

“Then it’s Bruce for you, Steve,” Bruce teased back. They shook hands, and somehow that was the signal that began a round of shoulder-claps and hugs and more handshakes between them all. Bucky took a moment to hold onto Clint, and Clint held back just a fiercely. “It’ll pass,” Bucky promised in a whisper Steve didn’t think he was meant to catch. “You’ll learn to live with it, if only because not living with it would mean letting _them_ win.”

Steve felt a twinge of sadness at that, and a sharper stab went through him as he watched Natasha lead Clint back to a low-ceiling black car, while Bruce walked with Tony to a flashy convertible. He watched the two cars fly into two different directions, and suddenly he couldn’t pinpoint what he was feeling. He was glad to be going home, but wretched with melancholy; sad to see the Avengers scatter, but eager to have Bucky to himself; he was reeling from their fight with _aliens_ , burned still by the sight of Bucky falling, proud of their win and of the tentative friendships he’d kindled, and underneath all that: he felt tired to the marrow. It all mixed together inside him into a lump with no name.

He turned towards Bucky, and nudged him gently with his shoulder, pushing him out of his own sombre thoughts. The frown on Bucky’s face cleared as soon as their eyes met, and they grinned like little kids before racing each other to where Bucky had parked his Harley. He’d had the presence of mind to drive it as far away from Thor’s storm of sadness as he could, so the only thing shining with dampness was the pair of deeply-grooved tires.

Bucky reached the bike first (the cheater!) and climbed on with a smooth economy of motion that made heat throb through Steve. He reached into the saddlebags for an half-helmet, and put it on Steve in such a careful, loving way, that an altogether different kind of heat suddenly flooded him, washing through him from head to toe, leaving his skin a mess of tingles. Tipping forward, Steve kissed Bucky sweetly on the mouth, a barely there press of lips that lingered for a small eternity.

“What was that for?” Bucky asked when they parted, resting his forehead against Steve’s cheek.

Steve shrugged, reaching up to tug Bucky’s hair out of its little bun.

“I can only go so long without tasting you,” he husked in the hot space between their mouths, and kissed him again - a longer, deeper kiss, warm and slow and entirely addicting.

There would be pictures of it, of course, on news sites and billions of tumblr accounts, but Steve was thinking of nothing but Bucky, and couldn’t care about anything that wasn’t the touch of their skin, the hot slide of their tongues, their breathing getting short and mingling as they kissed on and on and on.

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**S** eeing the cottage again, even if it was just from up in the sky as they prepared to land made them excited like kids all over again. The forest was green and sparkling with damp, and the cottage was just sitting there, waiting for their owners like a curled cat, all pretty and cosy and indolent.

Steve jumped out of the Quinjet first, and then held out his hand to Bucky to help him down. Bucky snorted, but put his palm to Steve’s own. Rather than use it to pull him down, Steve carefully guided Bucky’s hand onto his own shoulder, and then stepped close enough to cup both of his hands around Bucky’s waist. Bucky put his other hand on Steve’s shoulders, too, humming an enquiring note under his breath.

Swiftly but carefully, Steve picked Bucky up, and like a Victorian Lady, twirled him around and away from the giant puddle they’d landed next to.

“My hero,” Bucky teased through a brilliant grin.

“Your husband,” Steve grinned back, adorable dimples in full display, and glowing so bright it rivalled the sun.

“My husband,” Bucky echoed softly, the look on his face melting with indescribable fondness. He pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth and darted back. “Now, mind letting me go?” He asked, glancing down pointedly at where Steve’s hands were still latched around his waist, intimate and warm.

“About that…” Steve began, and then suddenly and without warning swooped down to hoist Bucky in his arms bridal-style. He scampered up the hill, Bucky’s laugh streaming behind them as they skipped and hopped up, up the hill, across the little garden and up the steps to the porch.

“JARVIS?” Steve called breathlessly, laughter in his voice, and when the door swung open, Steve ducked inside with a triumphant smile, spinning Bucky around and teasing: “Finally carrying _you_ through the threshold, sweetheart!” But Bucky just threw his head back and laughed and laughed some more, his messy hair clinging to his mouth and cheeks, eyes crinkling beautifully at the corners.

They were so _happy_.

It was an incandescent feeling, hot like the core of a star. Steve’s head dropped forward, face nestled in the curve of Bucky’s neck, breathing in deep, and he took it all in - the hot scent of Bucky’s skin, the sweet steady cadence of his breath. He wished he could bottle this moment, put it in his pocket and carry it with him forevermore. It felt precious like little else ever had in his life.

Quiet woodland noises drifted in from outside. The house’s bones creaked and thrilled with familiar sounds all around them. Bright golden sunlight bounced on the walls, a warm scented breeze sneaking in from the open door, teasing at their skin. With Bucky molded against his chest, so sweet and warm and pliant, Steve felt so full of love he thought he might die of it.

 _Home_ , he thought. He was finally home.

It took them a minute or several to come down from their high. And when they separated, it was in degrees: slow like magnets that were pulled apart against their own nature. Their eyes met, and couldn’t quite let go.

“We really ought to bring in our provisions,” Steve whispered, breath trembling in the small, hot space between their mouths.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied just as huskily, just as raw. “We’d better.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

“Sure.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Uh--”

A chiming sound came from around him - JARVIS’s personal version of clearing his throat. The two sprung apart, laughing breathlessly.

“Marvellous plan, Sirs. May I suggest you implement it before dusk befalls us?”

“Not cool, pal,” Bucky said, frowning playfully. “Keep the sass up, you won’t be my favourite anymore.”

“The chance of that happening,” JARVIS said matter-of-factly, “are less than 3,0%, Master James. I have been the favourite ever since my first string of code was written. That statement applies only if we take Captain Rogers out of the competition, of course,” he added just as matter-of-factly. “For there is no surpassing him.”

Steve grinned somewhat nonsensically up at the ceiling.

“Thanks, pal. I’m pretty awesome, I know.”

“Modest, too,” Bucky rebuked him, swatting Steve playfully in the chest. “He’s got a point, though. Our cargo won’t unload itself from the Quinjet. Let’s go.”

Unloading crates of fresh produce, canned food, assorted textiles for the house, some gadgets from Tony, clothes and, of course, _new books_ , was easy for two super soldiers. It took them a matter of minutes to transfer everything from the plane to their porch. But the prospect of actually opening the crates and putting everything in its place was extremely daunting.

“Coin-toss on who has to work and who gets first shower?” Bucky proposed.

“Nah,” Steve shrugged. “Just grab a random box and set to work.”

“Split and conquer,” Bucky grinned. “I like it.”

After a careful minute of contemplation, he approached a crate, the plates on his metal arm shifting beautifully as he applied enough pressure to the lid to wrench it completely off. He groaned when he saw the gazillion of books packed inside. He was going to have to file the older, already-read books in the shed in the back, and refill their bookshelves with this new selection.

It was just his luck that the second crate he picked didn’t provide him with an easier task: cracking the lid off, he found all the frozen meat and vegetables that would go in the big icebox in the basement.

Steve pushed towards him a second crate of books, with the excuse that “it wouldn’t make sense to split the job”, and knocked smugly on the side of the remaining crates: the dry and canned things for the pantry, Tony’s tech and the textiles. In short: the easiest tasks.

“Laugh it up,” Bucky muttered, lips pursed, and Steve proceeded to do just that. A bag of frozen cauliflower almost got him in the face, and Bucky booked it behind the corner of the house while he was too busy spluttering to retaliate.

Steve looked fondly after him for a moment, then brought himself to task before JARVIS could reprimand him.

He pulled his crates inside, humming quietly as he went. He cracked them all open, just to check the contents, and started rummaging inside with no real plan or hurry. He was picking up a beautiful, soft cardigan in tones of blue he’d stolen from Bucky’s wardrobe at the Tower, when a folder slipped out and fell onto the floor.

Steve frowned down at it, considering. The crates had been packed by SI and SHIELD personnel mostly, under JARVIS’s careful supervision; but everything that had gone inside had been vetted by Bucky and him first. So what was _this_?

Huffing, he bent to pick up the folder, wondering if this wasn’t Fury slipping them a new mission unbeknownst to their Teammates. The mere notion made a sour taste rise in his mouth, but though luck: he was way too hopped up on happiness for the rising spark of annoyance to catch inside him. He’d peer inside, sure. But only for the satisfaction of telling Fury a big, resounding “no” on any mission debrief the folder might contain.

Gingerly, he sat on his heels and drew the folder closer. It smelled ripe with age, and it was browning all around the edges. It had no recognisable logo or stamp on the outside; only a few long, loping strings of cursive under a blocky, black line of text, all of it in Cyrillic. It was a very tick folder too, but also surprisingly light for its bulk.

Intrigued, Steve pulled it open.

And.

Saw it.

The picture.

Right there, stapled to the inside cover.

And blue.

Blue like water.

Blue like frost.

A picture of Bucky.

Naked and vulnerable. Trapped beyond a layer of heavy glass, inside some sort of metal coffin.

Frozen still, like dead meat.

Like a corpse.

His eyes were closed, long lashes clumped with tiny crystals. A glistening string of ice particles circled his brow, dotted his hair. Cold blue shadow teemed over his beautiful, emaciated face. Etched deep gorges in the hollow of his cheeks, under his eyes, his chin, thinning the long column of his neck. His lips were cracked open, and as pale as death.

And there. Stamped in red. Red like like blood, striking on that crackling-old, mold-spotted first page. He read the words:

WINTER

SOLDIER

FILE.

Steve turned the first page feeling detached from his own body. From a remote place of horror, he watched himself skim his eyes across the translated notes on the margins, the roar of his own rushing blood deafening inside his ears. Coldness spread like poison from where the tip of his fingers touched the cursed folder. It crawled up, up to his chest, speared through his stuttering heart.

And what he read…

Oh, _what he read._

  
  


≡ ☆ ≡

  
  


**B** ucky dried his forehead with the inside of his wrist, brimming with the satisfaction of a job well done. The evening was a delight around him. The mellow golden light of near sunset slanted through the branches like syrup. Insects chirped somewhere in the distance, their steady rhythm somehow soothing, like the purring of a cat.

Grinning, he skipped up the steps and into the house, running his finger through his hair. He’d been wearing it in a bun, but some unruly strand had escaped, tickling along his cheeks.

Inside, the house looked muted, shadowy. Bucky had to blink the imprints left by the sun from his eyes, but even after his vision had cleared, the house felt somewhat forlorn, faded like an ageing photograph. He made a beeline for the sink, dunked his head under the water and shook himself off like a happy dog. He emerged from the kitchen humming happily, and called for Steve.

No one answered.

Bucky wasn’t worried; he figured that his husband might be taking a shower, or napping under the luxurious fleece throws they’d brought from the Tower. He strolled into their bedroom, a greeting on his lips.

And stopped cold.

Steve was kneeling on the floor, hunched over, wracked with shiver. The rancid stench of vomit lingering like a cloud in the air. When he tilted his head up, his eyes were puffy with tears, deeply veined in red. The rest of his face was as a pale as a corpse’s.

Before him, pages scattered, pictures strewn about, the Winter Soldier file laid in tatters.

Bucky felt suddenly sick, tossed about like a man lost at sea.

“Torture…” Steve murmured dazedly, looking through Bucky as if he wasn’t there. “Slaughter… the chair… the chamber… the children’s ward… so many horrors… so many nightmares… but there is no waking up. Not from this. Not if it’s real. And it is real. And I didn’t know. I didn’t. _"_

“Steve…?” Bucky croaked, in a voice not quite his own.

Steve’s eyes sharpened, piercing like hot blades, focusing on Bucky as if Steve hadn’t been aware until that moment that he wasn’t alone.

“How could…?” he murmured, haltingly through his breath. “How did you…? _How?_ ”

Dumbness was crawling over Bucky. He couldn’t feel his fingers. His face. Soon, he was sure, he wouldn’t be able to feel his heart. He made a little broken noise, and Steve reared back like it was a physical thing reaching for him, a thing that he didn’t want to be touched by.

“And you just… you just let me stay here,” his breathing was harsh, laboured; his tone incredulous.

A lump of ice speared through Bucky’s ribcage, cracking him right open.

“Ste--” he reached out, jerkily, a puppet with faulty strings. Steve clambered onto his feet and away from his hand, skittish like a cornered animal, eyes blown wide with a kind of terror. He wavered for a moment, then shook his head, again and again, like he was in pain, like he was trying to wake up.

“Don’t. Not right now,” he gritted through his teeth.“I can’t even look at you right now.” There was anguish in his face but the fury in his tone was palpable. His fists clenched with it. His whole body quivered. He tried to get another word out, but snarled instead, like an animal, and snarling he pushed his way out of the door. The room. The house.

Bucky could hear his footsteps thunder down the stairs, picking up speed, up and up, until he was flying down the porch and into the forest, trashing bushes and cracking branches, leaving a trail of destruction.

In the ringing silence left in his wake, Bucky slid to his knees slowly, painfully. Breath ragged, eyes wide and brimming over with tears. He ached all over. From the top of his lashes to the soles of his feet, one burning, engulfing wave of pain consumed him. Trembling fingers clawing at the ground, he curled on himself, hiding behind the curtain of his hair. And in solitude, he let himself shatter.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**~TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WAVES HANDS MADLY AND TAKES RETREATING STEPS* IT DOES SAY HAPPY ENDING ON THE TIN I PROMISE!!!!!!


End file.
